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Decorated by F.G.Cooper 



Circulation Department 

The Curtis Publishing Company 
Philadelphia 











Copyright 1912 by 
Curtis Publishing Company 
Philadelphia 


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© Cl. A 3 2 8 3 0 8 

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Contents 


Chapter I 


How To Begin. 1 

The First Steps. 1 

Steady Customers Are Best. 2 

When the Fun Begins. 2 

Show the Covers. 3 

Talk About the Strong Stories. 3 

Keep After Your Prospects. 4 

Learn Your Hearer’s Viewpoint. 6 

Cleverly-Worded Calls. 8 


Chapter II 


Traps for Our Post Boys.11 

“ I Don’t Want It”.12 

‘‘Call Again” .• • . . . 12 

“ I Am Too Busy to Talk to Today”.13 

‘‘I’ll Think it Over”.13 

“ I Take Too Many Magazines”.13 

“ I Won’t Be Here to Pay You”.14 

‘‘ Too Many Advertisements”.14 

‘‘I Can’t Afford It” ....•••• .16 

“ I Am Too Busy to Read It” . . .17 

‘‘I Have Subscribed”.18 

Fake Objections.20 

‘‘I Can’t Read”.21 

‘‘I Will Help You Later On”.22 

‘‘I’d Be a Fool to Buy The Post” .22 

The Prospect Who Won’t Listen.23 

Chapter III 

The Best Plans of Our Champion Post Boys.25 

The Exchange Plan.*.26 

The Society Plan.28 

The Endless-Chain Plan.30 

The Prize Plan. .32 

The Get-There Plan.33 

The College Plan.34 

The Plan of Sub-Agents.36 

The Purchasing-Agent Plan.38 









































Map Out Each Day’s Work. 40 

Summer Plans.41 

The Sample Copy Plan.43 

Unexpected Opportunities.45 

Letters from 519 Customers.' * 47 

Chapter IV 

What to Sell to Women.' *.50 

Journal Traps.52 

“ I Must Ask My Husband”.53 

“ Too Busy to Read The Journal”.53 

Special Journal Selling-Plans.55 

Using a Name. ; .56 

Talk About the Children.58 

Ask Customers to Get Prospects.59 

Chapter V 

Another Source of Profits.• * 60 

Good Ways to Sell The Gentleman. 63 

Grange and Institute Work.64 

When Farmers Come to Town.65 

The “Show-Them” Plan.65 

Chapter VI 

Holding Your Customers.67 

Causes for Stops.67 

A Customer Saved is One Gained.69 

Six Things to Remember.70 

Order Early.71 

Stealing.72 

One Boy’s Mistake.75 

Chapter VII 

How to Become a Crack Salesman.77 

Convince Yourself First.77 

What Is Salesmanship ?.79 

The Pre-Approach.79 

The Introduction.80 

The Demonstration.80 

Creating Desire.80 

Changing Desire Into Resolve.81 

How to Sell The Post to a Lawyer.84 

How to Sell The Post to a Business Man.85 

How to Sell The Post to a Doctor.86 

How to Sell The Post to a Baseball Fan.86 

How to Sell The Post to a Young Woman.87 

How to Sell The Post to a Railroad Man.87 

How to Sell The Journal to a Housewife.88 

How to Sell The Journal to Shoppers.88 

How to Sell The Journal to a Clerk.89 














































How to Sell The Journal to a Matinee Girl.89 

How to Sell The Gentleman to a Farmer.90 

How to Sell The Gentleman to a Farmer’s Wife.91 

How to Sell The Gentleman to a Commuter. 92 

How to Sell The Gentleman to a Banker. 92 

How to Sell The Gentleman to a Butcher.93 

How to Sell The Gentleman to a Grocer.93 

How to Sell The Gentleman to a Commission Merchant .... 94 

Scientific Selling or Peddling—Which ?.94 

The “Keep-Out” Signs.96 


Chapter VIII 

Our Higher Order of P-J Boys. 


98 


Chapter IX 


How to Manage Your Agency.101 

A Record of Drawings and Sales.101 

A Record of Deliveries to Customers.103 

Kill the Waste.106 


Chapter X 


The Prize Awards.108 

How the Prizes Are Awarded.109 

Make Every Copy Count.110 

Fair Play. HI 
































CHAPTER I 

HOW TO BEGIN 

T HE Saturday Evening Post believes that you can 
make good, as hundreds of other Post boys have done. 
You have just as much nerve, spunk and stick-to- 
it-ive-ness as the next fellow. All you need to know is how. 

In this little book we shall show you how to begin, how 
to sell 100 copies of The Saturday Evening Post and 
50 of The Country Gentleman each week, and maybe 
50 of The Ladies’ Home Journal each month. We are 
going to tell you how to make money, how to earn splen¬ 
did prizes, because we believe you in turn will show us you 
have nerve and spunk and stick-to-it-ive-ness enough to 
make a good salesman. 

The First Steps 

The best way to start is to ask several persons whom 
you know to buy The Post from you each week. Go to 
your relatives, friends and neighbors. Tell them that you 
are selling The Saturday Evening Post, that you are 
going to start a bank account of your own, that you 
are going to earn some splendid prizes. They will be glad 
to buy The Post from you. In this way you can easily get 
a list of ten or twelve regular customers at the very start. 



l 








Steady Customers Are Best 


Steady customers are best—much better than the casual 
buyers you meet on the street. When you have a list of 
twelve “steadies” you can deliver one week’s copies to 
them in half an hour and spend the rest of your spare time 
getting more regular customers. 

Some boys unwisely try to sell The Post only to chance 
customers. Such boys sometimes spend all Thursday after¬ 
noon in selling their supply; on rainy days they have 
trouble in selling any. Make it your plan to get steady 
customers to whom you can deliver early every Thursday. 

Have your mother or father make up for you a list of 
the names of persons whom they know. Call on these 
persons next, after your relatives and friends. Tell them 
that you are selling The Post, that you are earning your 
own spending-money. Tell them you’re going to earn 
prizes. Most of them will clap you on the back and say, 
“Good boy!” People like a boy with ambition. 

By these first easy steps you can probably get a list 
of twenty-five or fifty regular customers. This will be 
a good start toward your 100 copies a week. 


When the Fun Begins 


Now that you have your first customers, the fun is 
about to start. You are going to see how many more 
“steadies” you can get each week. You are going to see 
how many copies you can sell to strangers. With your 
pockets jingling with well-earned nickels, all your own, 
with the bank at home getting heavier each week, and 
with more and more Vouchers sticking their corners out of 



►how the 2 


.over 

'ictures 














your Voucher wallet, you are out for more customers. 


more profits. 


Show the Covers 


Lots of people are led to buy The Post because of 
its attractive covers. Hold your copies so that people 
can see the covers. If necessary, call attention to them. 
But don’t expect the covers to do all the selling for you. 
After you have his attention, then point out some article 
you think will interest him. 


Talk About the Strong Stories 

When you buy a pair of shoes you don’t say “shoes” 
to the salesman, and carry home the package he gives you. 
Not a bit of it! You want to know all about those shoes. 
Are they high or low shoes ? Are they calfskin or patent- 
leather? Are they the right size ? 

Just so, some prospects won’t buy The Post if you call 
out only, “Post, sir? The Saturday Evening Post?”— 
even if you show the cover. They want to know what’s 
inside, whether amusing stories, political articles, or serials. 

When you approach a prospect—friend or stranger— 
tell him what is in the current issue. Talk about some 
strong story or article you think will interest him. The 
boys who do this are the boys who make good. 

You can easily find out what is in each issue. Look the 
copies over when they first come, or ask your mother to 
do it. Thus you can learn what are the best articles and 
to what kinds of people they will appeal. 

Recently we asked a number of new readers by what 
method they had been induced to buy their first copies of 
The Post. Of these the largest number replied that they 
bought their first copies because the boys who served them 
knew and talked about the contents . (See page 48.) 



3 











It’s you 
this week 
on the 
Who’s Who 
page, 
Senator l 


’H-heml 
Let me 
have 100 
copies 


Bear this in mind, and give each person a reason why 
he should buy. 

There is always some one article or story in each issue 
which will make a strong appeal to every person you 
approach. The fact that about two million Posts are sold 
each week shows how many people have learned that it 
contains just what they want. 

Study each copy carefully. Decide which article will 
appeal to each prospect. Show it to him. For example: 

When you see an article on baseball you should be able 
to sell a copy to every baseball player or fan in town, to 
read just that article. If there is an article about banks ask 
the employees and the officials in your local banks to buy, 
just for that article. When you see an article on public 
schools you can get your teachers and members of the 
School Committee to buy copies, just to read that article — 
and so on. 

After these people have read the special articles for 
which they bought the copies they will then read the rest 
of the contents. Their eyes will be opened to the splendid 
stories in the issue. You can then get them as steady 
customers. 

Keep After Your Prospects 

After a man has bought one copy kee*p on calling each 
week until he agrees to buy steadily. The boy who wins 
out is the boy who keeps at it. 

A certain busy man lives in one of the Colorado cities. 
He is not a grouchy man—toward everybody—but for boys 
he had mighty little use during business hours, especially 
for one boy who, for several weeks, had poked his head 
inside the doorway every Thursday morning and called 
out: “Want The Saturday Evening Post, sir?” 



4 










There is a sign on the man’s office door which says, in 
big black letters, “No Admittance to Peddlers and Agents,’* 
but this P-J boy doesn’t believe in signs. Besides, he 
wanted to sell The Post to this one gentleman more than 
to anybody else. 

So every time the boy carried The Post to other read¬ 
ers in that block he stuck his head in at that man’s door 
and asked if he wouldn’t buy a copy. The first week the 
man said, “Naw!” The boy closed the door immediately. 
The second week the reply was, “Naw! And I don’t want 
you to bother me any more.” The third week the man called 
out, “See here, kid! If you stick your head in at my door 
again you’ll get an inkstand.” 

Mind you, all this time the boy had been politeness 
itself, but he had also been persistence itself. 

The fourth week the boy opened the door wide, stepped 
in, closed the door behind him, took off his cap and said: 
“Don’t you want The Post, sir?” 

The man reached over the desk and took the inkstand. 

“Didn’t I tell you that if you stuck your head in here 
again I’d throw this inkstand at you?” he demanded. 
“Yes, sir,” said the boy, standing his ground. “But you 
do need to read The Post.” 

The man looked at the boy a minute, then put the ink- 
stand on the desk, muttering, “Oh, hang! What’s the use?” 
Then he gathered up his papers, went into his inner office 
and locked the door, leaving the boy standing there alone. 

The fifth week the boy came again—he was no quitter— 
opened the door and stepped within, as before. The man 
was reading. He did not look up. 

“I would like to have you buy The Post, sir,” the boy 
said politely. The man did not stir. Not once during the 
five minutes that the boy stood there did the man even 



5 












glance in his direction. Finally the boy reached over, put 
a copy on the desk and skipped out as fast as he could leg it. 

The sixth week the boy called promptly on Thursday 
morning and left a copy, as before. 

The seventh week he found fifteen cents on the desk 
for the three copies he had delivered. 

For a whole month thereafter the boy went to that 
office, opened the door, said “Good-morning, sir,” put 
The Post on the desk, picked up the money for it, and left 
with a “Thank you!” And in all that time the man paid 
no attention to him—did not speak even a single word. 

All this happened over a year ago. That man is still 
buying The Post from the boy. He hasn’t missed an issue 
during the year. Now he always says “Good-morning” 
when the boy calls—indeed, it is a mighty busy morning 
when he doesn’t say more than that. Only last week he 
stopped the boy and said: 

“When you are too big, kid, to carry The Post any 
longer, when you come to look for a man’s job, stop and 
tell me.” 

This is a true story, vouched for by Mr. Raymond H. 
Wolfe, of the Tribune office, Greeley, Colorado. The hero 
of the story is a boy who stuck at it. You can see what it 
gained for him. 

Learn Your Hearer’s Viewpoint 

When you approach some one who hasn’t read The 
Post you want to look at it from his point of view. Size up 
your man. Decide what kind of a man he is—what busi¬ 
ness he is engaged in. Then tell him that you want him 
to buy The Post because of some certain article you think 
will interest him . 






Not long ago Mr. F. E. Dawley, an official of the 
United States Department of Agriculture, took a trip 
from his office in Fayetteville, New York, to Syracuse. 
There he met one of our P-J boys on the street. 

Boy: “Saturday Evening Post, sir? Only five 
cents! It’s the best paper ever printed, sir.” 

Mr. Dawley: “Not tonight.” 

Boy: “Well, Mr. Farmer”—he had sized up his man— 
“You will miss it if you don’t buy this paper. There’s a 
great story in it about how farmers get rich quick, and 
butter’s forty cents a pound. ” 

Mr. Dawley: “How do you know I’m a farmer?” 

Boy: “Oh, I don’t know for sure, but I kind of guess 
you’re a farmer. You look like one and you are headed 
toward the hotel where the farmers leave their teams. 
You need this Post. ” 

Mr. Dawley: “ What has the price of butter got to do 
with my buying The Post?” 

Boy: “ If you are making a lot of money you can afford 
to buy one; and if you ain’t making much money here’s a 
story about how to borrow money at the bank. Besides 
that, the farmers’ story tells you what an acre of land is 
worth. Oh, The Post is a great paper.” 

Mr. Dawley bought. Why ? Because the boy had sized 
him up and had pointed out to him the very article in 
which he was interested. 

When you set out to sell to some one who has not read 
The Post try to put yourself in his boots. Look at it from 
his point of view. Think of reasons why he will want The 
Post. Urge them for all they are worth. 


7 

















Cleverly-Worded Calls 

Bright, snappy calls will attract strangers and sell 
copies for you when “Saturday Evening Post,” monoto¬ 
nously repeated, will not. You can make up a good call by 
running over the contents of each issue and picking out the 
article which you think will appeal to most people. For 
instance, politely accost a gentleman with the following 
question: 

“Pardon me, sir, but do you enjoy having your 
hair cut?” 

Such an unexpected question will secure his attention 
at once. Follow it with: “ Here’s another story by Irving 
S. Cobb, about ‘Hair and the Experiences of a Man in the 
Barber Shop,’ one big laugh from beginning to end. You’ll 
enjoy it.” 

Or, to Mr. Pinchpenny: “How wasteful we Americans 
are! aren’t we? You may not realize it, but you will when 
you read this article on ‘The American Spenders,’ by 
Will Irwin.” 

To know how to stop prospects who won’t listen will 
be a big help to you. Don’t let them walk by without 
heeding you. Read the following letter from Mr. A. W. 
Moore, of Golconda, Illinois, and learn how Herman 
Harrison sold him a copy—when Mr. Moore was in 
a great hurry. 

“I was hurrying to catch a train. Herman stood in the 
way, cap in hand, and as I was just about to enter the 
train said: ‘Sir, you have forgotten something! ’ 

“I stopped and asked what I had forgotten. The 
porters from the hotels, the hackmen and the train crew 
were all busy. There was so much noise that I could 
scarcely hear Herman’s reply: ‘You have forgotten to 


8 





purchase The Post; this one contains a fine article on 
“Good Men and True.”’ 

“I naturally stopped and looked at Herman, because 
he was so cool and courteous that he impressed me, not as 
being in my way, but as a mascot, necessary to the lucky 
traveler just ready to board the train. 

“I thrust my hand into my pocket to find that nickel 
which is the pride of every Post boy’s heart. Herman 
smiled as he saw me do it, and held me at bay until I fished 
out the coin and took my copy. 

“From the car window I saw him stop and sell a num¬ 
ber of copies to other men with his ingenious call: ‘ Sir, you 
have forgotten something! ’ which he used as a ‘ ringer ’ to 
get his 'prospects' attention .” 

When you get a chance to make a sale to a passer-by 
on the street step quietly but firmly up to his side, lift 
your cap, and in a gentlemanly way say, “Sir, you have 
forgotten something!” Do this and no man will get by 
you without listening. 

* * * * * * 

Take a tip from a boy who once sold newspapers on one 
of the busy corners in Detroit. This is the way he talked 
to prospects: 

“All about the bank cashier locked up!” he shouted, 
as the teller came out of a near-by bank. The teller 
bought a paper. 

“All about the prize-fight!” he cried, as he saw a 
bull-necked man round the corner. The fellow bought 
a paper. 

“All about the minister mixed up in a scandal!” was 
his next, and a clerical man relieved him of a third copy. 








“All about the Hains murder trial!” at which a girl 
waiting to get tickets at the Whitney Theater tossed him 
a penny. 

“ Million-dollar fire!” he cried at a passing fireman, 
who bought another paper. 

“Taft has a bad cold! ” called the boy, as he sold a copy 
to a would-be politician. 

“All about the suicide!” was his next cry, aimed at 
a glum-looking man, who pulled a penny from his pocket. 

“Fresha da news from olda It’tally!” he called to a 
passing Italian peddler. 

“Sorra,” replied the peddler, “buta no can read dat 
pap; noa da Anglese.” 

“ Stung! ” murmured the boy to himself; but his spirits 
revived when, on seeing the weather man, he cried: 

“All about the weather man’s blunder!” 



10 












CHAPTER II 

N OW that you know how to approach people, let’s talk 
over the reasons they may give for not buying. You 
must learn how to answer such arguments. 

As a rule, people will refuse to buy from you only when 
you have not made your selling-talk persuasive enough, 
when you have not hit upon the special story or article 
which they want, or when you have not explained it 
clearly. Try again. 

Some people will jokingly refuse to buy just to see 
how good you are at giving answers. Don’t let them fool 
you. You should seriously answer only objections made 
in earnest—to make people buy from you now —and for no 
other reason. 

The boys who make good are usually those who can 
talk straight to the point, without giving the appearance 
of arguing. The best way is to think ahead of your pros¬ 
pect. If you know beforehand what objection he is going 
to make you can answer before he makes it—and thus 
knock his props from under him. Show us a boy who can 
answer objections in advance and we’ll show you a boy 
who is a prize-earner. 

Suppose we look at some of the objections you will 
meet—so that you will know how to answer them: 



i 











“I Don’t Want It” 

To most boys the prospects who say, “I don’t want it” 
are the hardest of all. Somehow, you can’t thaw ’em out. 

And yet there is one star argument our best boys use to 
convince thousands of their “ don’t-want-it ” prospects— 
an argument worth dollars in cold cash to you. 

When a man says, “I don’t want The Post,” and tries 
to shake you off, talk turkey to him, thus: 

“The question, Mr. Jones, is not ‘Do you want The 
Post,’ but ‘Do you need The Post?’ I may not want to 
go to school, but I need to go. Isn’t that true ? 

“It is exactly that way with The Post. You may not 
want it, but you need it. A few years ago you didn’t 
know you wanted the telephone or the electric light. But 
you can’t do without them now. 

“Buy this issue, Mr. Jones—read the editorials and 
the ‘Who’s Who’ page. After that you will want The 
Post each week as badly as you need it now.” 

Study this argument—learn it by heart, if you want to 
win prizes. Put this argument up to your “ don’t-want-it ” 
prospects, and you’ll soon get the Prize you have set your 
heart on—the Prize you’ve chosen from the Rebate Book. 

“Call Again” 

When a prospect says, “Come some other time” you 
may say: “Mr. Smith, if The Post will interest you next 
week it will interest you now. Here is an article that you 
would be sorry to have missed.” 

Name the article and the author. Open the copy at 
the right page and show it to him. 



12 



















“I Am Too Busy to Talk Today” 

When a prospect says he is too busy to talk take out 
your notebook, tell him pleasantly that you try to avoid 
annoying and, making an entry in your book so that he 
cannot fail to see you do it, say: “Suppose I call about 
nine o’clock Saturday morning for a few minutes ? ” 

When you call on Saturday morning take it for granted 
that he has already decided to buy a copy, and say to him: 
“Here is the copy of The Post you want. You will 
remember I saw you on Thursday.” 

Then hand him a copy and offer your pencil and pledge- 
page for his signature. Probably you will get the money 
on the spot—as well as the signed order for weekly delivery. 
In any case, you will have made a good start, for, having 
asked you to call, your prospect is under some obligation 
to you—and knows it. 

“ I’ll Think it Over” 

When a prospect says this it is pretty hard to tell where 
the shoe pinches. Try to find out his real reason for not 
buying at once. In a polite way you can say: “What is it 
you wish to think over? I am sure you will enjoy The 

Post this week, because it contains an article on-, 

and I want you to get your copy before I am sold out. 
After you have read this number you will want The Post 
each week. The magazine itself is my best advertisement.” 

“I Take Too Many Magazines” 

When a prospect says this it shows he really doesn’t 
think much of the magazines he already takes. It shows 




13 







he doesn’t know about The Post. In your reply you should 
say: “I don’t want to run down your other magazines— 
the ones you have no time to read. The Post has such 
splendid articles and stories that I know you will take time 
to read it if you'll give yourself a chance. In this week’s 
issue, for instance, there is a story that is bound to interest 
you. The story is-” 

Never try to run down the other magazines your pros¬ 
pect takes. No good salesman knocks his competitors’ 
goods. Instead, show how much better The Post is by 
pointing out its best features. You need never shrink 
from doing this, for if you know The Post you can readily 
convince any fair-minded person that it is the best. 

“I Won’t Be Here to Pay You” 

When a business man tells you that he is out of his 
office so much of the time that he probably will not be 
there to pay you when you bring his copy you should 
reply as follows: 

“My customers who are in when I call pay for the copies 
I leave with them. Those who are not in either leave the 
money for me or pay me the following week. I know you 

are all right, Mr.-. I’ll trust you. You are here this 

week. Here is the first copy. Will you pay me now or 
next week?” 

“Too Many Advertisements” 

Some prospects know very little about the publishing 
business. Sometimes they complain of too many adver¬ 
tisements and offer that as a reason for not buying. When 
they do so you should say: 







“The more advertisements there are the more articles 
and stories the issue contains. If more advertising is 
received than there is room for in a regular-sized issue the 
Publishers add extra pages. For every extra column of 
advertisements inserted there are not less than two 
columns of reading matter.” 

Regular readers never complain about the number of 
advertisements. Then, too, the advertisements tell readers 
what are the up-to-date goods in all lines of business. 
Many readers buy magazines as much for the advertise¬ 
ments as for the reading matter. 

Speaking of advertisements, we are reminded of a letter 
from Mr. Frank Smith, Assistant Superintendent of the 
Prudential Life Insurance Company, Philadelphia. Mr. 
Smith wrote: 

“I have charge of canvassers for the Prudential Life 
Insurance Company, and, therefore, appreciate all the 
more the selling-tactics your boy agent used to induce 
me to buy The Post. 

“About two weeks ago he came to my desk in this office 
and asked me to look at the Prudential advertisement in 
that week’s issue, thus working me at my own game. I 
knew about the magazine, for I had at times purchased it 
on the street, but I must admit that this boy was the first 
to approach me on a canvassing basis, and he won out by 
showing me that advertisement. 

“Your boy certainly knew his business when he worked 
our office in this way, and he deserves every one of the fifty 
customers whom he now serves in our office each week.” 



















“I Can’t Afford It” 

You know the “Arabian Nights” story of the young man 
for whom the magic words, “Open Sesame,” rolled from 
before him the stone blocking the entrance to the treasure 
cave. You are that young man. The right answer to 
the I-can’t-afford-it objection will earn big profits for you. 

When a woman tells you that she can’t afford to buy 
The Post you should quickly think whether or not any 
of her friends or acquaintances buy from you. If several 
of them do you can answer her in this way: “Mrs. 
Smith, I sell The Post to Mrs. Green, Mrs. White, Mrs. 
Black—all friends of yours. They feel they can afford it. 
In fact, they feel that they cannot afford to be without it. 

“ You know about what means they have. You are just 
as able to buy The Post as they are. It is of just as much 

value to you as it is to them. If they can afford it you 

_ » 

can. 

Another answer to the I-can’t-afford-it argument is 
found in a letter received from Mr. J. M. Averbook, of 
Duluth, Minnesota. 

Mr. Averbook was waiting on the corner for a car one 
evening a little after six o’clock. 

.“Saturday Evening Post, sir?” said a P-J boy, step¬ 
ping up to him. 

“No, I can’t afford it,” was Mr. Averbook’s answer. 

A pause. 

“Waiting for a car, sir?” said the boy, looking at 
Mr. Averbook. 

“Yes, son,” was the reply. 

This is the conversation that followed, and this is the 
way the P-J boy showed Mr. Averbook he was wrong in 
thinking he could not afford to buy The Post : 


Open 
Sesame ! 
P is here I 


16 













“Say, Mister, how far away do you live?” 

“I didn’t catch just what he was trying to get at,” 
writes Mr. Averbook, “so I answered, ‘Twelve blocks.’ 

“‘Shucks! I can walk that in fifteen minutes any 
time,’ said the boy quickly. ‘If you can afford to take 
the car for a twelve-block ride you can certainly afford 
to buy The Post. I’ll tell you what to do: You buy The 
Post from me and walk home this once. Look, here’s 
sixty pages of fine reading—enough for two or three even¬ 
ings. After supper when you start to read The Post you 
will forget that you had to walk twelve blocks to earn it 
and you will enjoy it all the more/ 

“ While he was delivering this speech,” continued Mr. 
Averbook, “I took another look at the boy and I saw that 
he was not the kind of boy that teases and annoys every¬ 
body (see page 67). He was an intelligent and neatly- 
dressed youngster. Ordinarily when I say ‘No’ to a 
newsboy that settles it. But not this boy. My car was 
coming. I saw that I must decide quickly. He saw, too. 

“Then he said: ‘Take it in your hand and run through 
it while I wait.’ I took it from him and—well, that finished 
the argument. The car went whizzing by. I walked 
home. That night I enjoyed a treat. The boy showed me 
that even if I could not afford to buy The Post once a 
week I certainly could afford to earn one by walking home 
at least once every seven days. I have done so without 
fail every week since.” 

“I Am Too Busy to Read It” 

The man who says this means that he is too busy to 
read trash. He is not too busy to read the best weekly 
in the world. 



17 











Cant 

stop 

now! 


No matter how hard a man works he will never accom¬ 
plish much if he doesn’t spend a certain amount of time in 
recreation. ‘‘All work and no play”—you know the rest. 
When a man thinks continually along one line he sooner or 
later gets into a rut. 

Every intelligent man does some reading. He spends 
part of his evening reading something. It won’t be hard 
to persuade your “too-busy” prospect that The Post is 
full of good, solid matter that he will like. It’s good busi¬ 
ness for a man to know about the things that are pub¬ 
lished in The Post. 

To such a man make your strong talking-point the 
actual value of The Post to him. 


“I Have Subscribed” 


Here your prospect needs no argument—he already 
knows the value of The Post. You can omit all that part 
of your talk and devote your efforts to persuading him to 
pay you to deliver a copy each week to some friend of his. 

If the pastor of his church doesn’t buy The Post from 
you offer to deliver to the pastor and to collect from the 
prospect each week. Suggest that perhaps your prospect 
has a nephew or a father who would like The Post and 
who, like the minister, would especially appreciate it as 
a gift from him. 

All men at one time or another have arguments with 
their friends on political matters. Point out to the sub¬ 
scriber or prospect some article which he would like his 
friend to read. It will occur to your prospect to squelch 
his friend by paying you to deliver The Post to that friend— 
especially if that issue contains some article along the very 
lines on which the prospect has argued with his friend. 



18 















Don’t think for a minute that because the subscriber 
receives a copy by mail the rest of his family are going to 
be satisfied with that one copy. Not a bit of it! On this 
point Mr. Louis W. Greeman, of Mamaroneck, New York, 
wrote about one of our boys as follows: 

“Charles Williams is his name, eleven is his age and 
he lives here. He has all the qualities of a salesman— 
plus one. 

“Charles Williams stood on the station platform at 
7:45 on Thursday morning when I first saw him, his 
Saturday Evening Post bag swinging loosely from his 
shoulder, for he had but five copies left to sell. This in 
itself attracted me, for it was the first morning of the 
issue’s appearance, and Charles Williams must have been 
‘on the job’ for the earliest commuters. He tackled me. 
Then came into view Charles Williams’ great attribute— 
his ‘plus one,’ for Charles goes in to make two potatoes 
grow where but one grew before. His talking-points were 
gems and would have sold twice the number of copies he 
had with him, but they did not affect me, as I am a sub¬ 
scriber. I told him so. 

‘“Did you receive your Post this week yet?* asked 
‘Charles Williams quickly, with a fine emphasis on 
the ‘yet.’ 

“‘No,’ said I. ‘It generally reaches me Thursday 
night or Friday morning.’ 

“‘And then some other member of the family reads it 
first , and it’s about Saturday before you read it,* said 
Charles Williams, with a correct emphasis on the ‘you.’” 

“ Oh, you Charles Williams! You certainly know some¬ 
thing about selling goods.” 

“ I bought that last copy of his, jumped on the 8:06 and 
decided that I would buy my Posts of him every week. 



19 














leaving the subscribed-for copy to the tender mercies of 
the other members of the family. 

“If you think that one copy of The Post each week is 
enough for every family you are wrong. Many a man 
who subscribes so that his family may receive The Post 
at home will also buy as I did from Charles Williams. ,, 

Fake Objections 

Most men are busy. You have to get their attention 
at the outset or they will raise the first objection that 
comes to them. Such objections are generally made just 
to get rid of you. A prospect may have no real reason 
for not buying. 

You must decide whether an objection is merely a 
sham or the real thing. If it seems sincere answer it just 
as carefully and as forcibly as you can. 

But if it is plainly a makeshift do not spend a lot of 
time trying to convince the prospect that his point is not 
a good one. He knows that as well as you do. Pass over 
the sham objection with a casual word or two, then set out 
to gain his attention and to arouse his interest. 

You will have to be very careful not to slight any 
objection which is a real one. It is better to spend time 
answering a sham objection than to slight an honest one. 

Perhaps the most common fault of the “green” P-J 
boy is his tendency to believe any reason a prospect may 
give for not buying. Unless you know the ropes, and until 
you learn by experience to know when prospects are sin¬ 
cere and when they are shamming, you are likely to accept 
a “no” as final. The average boy believes all he hears— 
if he is new at the game. He believes without investigating 
the reasons why. 


Maybe yo ad 
like one? 



20 













No, Im blind. 



It’s up to you, therefore, to be prepared for these sham 
objections. You must teach yourself. To help you out 
we shall outline some of those most commonly heard. 


“I Can’t Read” 


Walking home with his father, the other day, a Phila¬ 
delphia P-J boy pointed to a prosperous lawyer, who was 
waiting for a trolley. He said: “Father, that man wouldn’t 
buy The Post. When I asked him he said, ‘I can’t read.’ ” 

That lawyer is a graduate of Princeton—a man who 
reads all the standard magazines. But this boy actually 
believed what the lawyer told him. 

The boy’s father chaffed him for being so easily rebuffed. 
The boy resolved on a new line of action. The next day 
he called on the lawyer again, and said: 

“You were kidding me yesterday. I guess I was pretty 
green, but I’m learning fast. Now I want you to sign this 
order for thirteen weeks.” 

The lawyer put his name on the dotted line. 

Whenever a prospect advances this absurd objection 
you can land him by the following plan, used by one of our 
boys in Texas: 

“When I went to Mr. K and asked him to buy a Post 
he put me off and said he could not read. So I said, ‘All 
right,’ and went out. I got an old letter that was written 
to Mr. B and took it back to Mr. K and said, ‘ I think this 
letter is for you.’ He said, ‘No, it is for Mr. B.’ Then I 
had him. I laughed and said, ‘I thought you could not 
read.’ He laughed too. He bought The Post and has 
been a customer ever since.” 

You should take with a grain of salt most of the reasons 
prospects give for not buying. Most of them are faked up 
on the spot to put you off. 


21 


Meow! 








When a prospect does mean what he says you should 
answer his objection seriously, but don’t waste time 
arguing down fake excuses. 

Instead, show your prospect why he needs The Post. 
It will then be up to him to buy. 

“I Will Help You Later On” 

When a prospect tells you he’ll help you later on he is 
probably not sincere. If he wants to help you he’ll help 
you now. Therefore, persuade him to start buying from 
you at once. 

You should show such a prospect that by placing his 
order at once he will help you more than by doing it later 
on. If necessary, draw out your copy of the Rebate Book 
and show him the Prize you are working for. Tell him 
that he will help you a lot by not putting off his purchase. 
Ask him to sign your order now and to continue to buy 
The Post from you until you get your Prize. 

“I’d Be a Fool to Buy THE POST” 

Now and then a prospect will try to get out of buying 
by telling you in effect that a man is a fool to buy 
The Post. There is one telling answer to this objection. 
Read the following letter from Mr. H. O. Mennig, of 
Pennsylvania: 

“One day in January I stood in front of Broad Street 
Station, Philadelphia, watching a ten-year-old Post boy 
selling to passers-by. At last he saw me, glided to my side, 
and said: ‘Just what you want on the train, sir! ’ 

“Mennig: ‘Look here, my boy! This is Thursday and 
you’re trying to sell me Saturday’s paper. What do you 
think I want of a paper five days old?’ 



22 





“Boy: ‘Say, you’re from New York, ain’t you? Well, 
Phillie is an up-to-date town and New York is so far behind 
that when it’s Thursday over there it’s Saturday here* 

“Mennig: ‘ The man who reads The Post is foolish, for 
it does him no good.* 

“Boy: ‘Look here, now,’ pointing with his finger to 
‘More Than a Million and Three-Quarters Circulation 
Weekly,’ and ‘Founded A. D., 1728.’ 

“ ‘ There ain*t that many fools in the country , so they ain*t 
all fools that buy it. A paper that lasts over a hundred*n 
eighty years ain*t half bad or it would have gone to smash long 
ago. Come on; fall in line and buy one!* 

“The boy’s point was unanswerable and in my opinion 
the strongest there is on the subject. A magazine that 
has withstood the test of criticism for 184 years and gained 
a circulation of almost two million must have merit 
behind it.” 

Every time a prospect tells you that the man who buys 
The Post is foolish you ought to point to the circulation 
figures on the cover and drive home the fact that there 
aren’t that many fools in the country. 

The Prospect Who Won’t Listen 

This is probably the hardest prospect to land, for when 
you can’t see the bull’s-eye it’s pretty hard to hit it. 
There is only one way to sell to the prospect who heart¬ 
lessly walks right on without stopping when you offer 
The Post to him, and who abruptly orders you out of 
his office when you stick your head in his doorway—that 
is, stick to him. 

Probably he has a boy of his own, and when that boy 
sets out to do anything worth while his father requires 



23 









him to use persistence and to see it through to a finish. 
That father measures his own boy’s grit by the bulldog 
tenacity with which the boy hangs on to whatever he 
undertakes. It is natural, then, that the father should 
treat you as he would like to have his own boy treated. 

Persist in obtaining a hearing, even at the risk of getting 
a call-down. The boy who can make a prospect listen, say 
what he has to say briefly and to the point, and come 
away with a nickel in his pocket is the boy who makes good. 

Read page 25. 



24 








The Best Plans 

of Our 

Champion 
Post Boys 


CHAPTER in 

F ROM previous pages you have learned how to get 
your first twenty-five customers, how to pick out 
one article or story in each issue to interest the man 
you are seeking as a “regular,” and how to get the best of 
customers who make objections. Now we shall tell you 
about the best selling-plans which have brought success, 
profit and Prizes to our champion boys. 

In working out these several plans you must have confi¬ 
dence in yourself and in the magazines you are selling. In 
all your efforts to get customers don’t be afraid to rap with 
a firm knock on a man’s door. The man inside can tell by 
your knock whether or not you mean business and have 
confidence in yourself. A firm knock will get attention at 
once, where a timid boy would not even get admission. 

Similarly, when you see a prospect on the street, walk 
right up to him with an air of confidence which allows no 
thought on his part of passing you by. Approach each 
prospect as one business man to another. 

Very often you can introduce yourself in this way: 
“Good-morning.” (Or, good-afternoon.) “I have just 
started to sell The Saturday Evening Post, and am 
working for a prize of [watch, fountain pen, tool chest, 
bicycle, and so on]. I called to see if you would become 
one of my regular customers, as I know you will like The 
Post. In this week’s issue there is an article [or story] 







called-, which you would be mighty sorry to miss. 

Please look at it. [Hand him the copy.] The price is only 
five cents.” 

The Exchange Plan 

The backbone of business is exchanging orders —and so 
it should be in your case. 

You should sell your magazines to every person with 
whom you and your parents do business. You should sell 
copies to your tailor, milkman, grocer, landlord, and so 
on—don’t let a single one escape you. 

These people get your business in their particular 
lines, don’t they? It is only fair that they should turn 
around and give you their business. Besides, with all due 
respect to their goods, they don’t, by a long shot, offer you 
better values than the Curtis publications. 

Just the other day young Rene Flanders’ father told 
us how the boy had signed up the barber as a steady cus¬ 
tomer. His mother and father had taken him to the barber 
and had left him in the chair to have his hair cut. In a 
half-hour they returned for him. Mr. Flanders asked 
whether Rene had succeeded in selling The Post to the 
barber. “Yes,” said Rene. 

“ How did you go about it ? ” 

“ Well, I asked him to buy The Post. He coughed—and 
said he might next time. I thought a moment. Then I 
said to him: ‘All right. The next time I want a hair-cut 
I may come here to get it.’ He laughed out loud and said 
I was right; that he would take The Post every week.” 

See all the dealers, store people, business men, doctors, 
lawyers and other people with whom you and your parents 



26 
















do business. If you go about it right you can get them all 
for your customers. 

Then, too, every business man has brothers, sons, rela¬ 
tives and friends to whom you can “get next” if he will 
but say the word for you—and he will if you go at him 
right. 

Below is a list of business men. Pick out the one in 
each line with whom you and your parents trade. Canvass 
them and their employees at once: 

Grocer 
Butcher 
Baker 
Milkman 
Liveryman 
Dressmaker 
Blacksmith 
Coalman 
Shoemaker 
Iceman 
Milliner 
Dry-goods D 
Publisher of ' 

Haberdasher 
Clothier 
Barber 

If you secure an order from one person out of each of 
these classes you will have thirty-one more customers. In 
many places you can land several orders—in the dry-goods 
store, for instance. 




aily Paper 


Painter 

Plumber 

Carpenter 

Gasman 

Florist 

Jeweler 

Photographer 

Banker 

Dentist 

Doctor 

Optician 

Druggist 

Hardware Dealer 

Electrician 

Tailor 



27 



























It will be a big help if, when asking your prospect for 
his order, you can turn some business his way. When you 
go to the butcher to buy next Sunday’s chicken or roast 
beef carry your pledge-card along and, before finally making 
your purchase , get the butcher’s order. On Saturday 
night, when the grocer’s pen is dipped in the ink to receipt 
your bill for the week, lay your pledge-card on his desk 
and ask him to sign that, too. Remember, you are losing 
customers every day until you form the habit of getting 
business where you give it. 

The Society Plan 

Ask your parents, brothers and sisters to take you with 
them to the public or general meetings of any societies, 
clubs or other organizations to which they belong. Meet 
as many members as you can, tell them how successful 
you are and for what Prize you are working, and induce 
them to buy The Post from you. 

Perhaps the Y. M. C. A. wishes to raise money for 
a new building; maybe the Ladies’ Auxiliary, the Epworth 
League or the Christian Endeavor of some church wants to 
secure funds to pay off a debt, or to buy a new organ; pos¬ 
sibly your townsmen are trying to build a hospital or to 
get money for a library. Look about you and find some 
society or association seeking to raise money. 

Master Clarence Owens, of Atlantic City, N. J., 
secured several hundred customers by a similar plan. 

When you have selected the organization with which 
you intend to work call on its president or leader. From 
him you may get the names and addresses of the members 
of his society, and a letter of introduction similar to the 
one on the following page: 


28 











January 1 , 1912. 

To the Citizens of Hillsboro: 

John Hunt, the hustling young agent for THE SATURDAY 
EVENING Post, has agreed to donate to our Hospital Fund 25 °/o 
of his profits on all new customers. I earnestly request that every 
one sign this pledge-page, agreeing to take a copy of The POST 
each week, as each new customer will help swell our Fund. I, 
myself, have signed, and hope for a long list of followers. 

(Signed) T. M. OSBORNE, Mayor. 


Name 

Address 

Date of First 
Delivery 

T. M. Osborne 

711 Euclid Avenue 

Jan. 1, 1912 


With such a letter from the president of a society you 
can call on all the members, explaining that you are taking 
orders for your magazine, with the understanding that a 
certain share of your profit, say twenty-five per cent., from 
the sales made to society members is to go toward their 
fund. 

If the fund is to be raised for some purpose of general 
interest to all the citizens of your town, such as the build¬ 
ing of a new Y. M. C. A., hospital or library, you can call 
on everybody , approaching them as you would members of 
a society. Every patriotic person who is not already one 
of your customers will readily sign if you put it up to him 
thus. You might agree to give forty per cent, of your 
profits if fifty or more members sign your pledge-blank. 
You can offer sixty per cent, of your profits if one hundred 
or more society customers sign. 



29 



















A good plan will be for you to agree to divide your 
profits for a definite period, say for two or three months, 
rather than for an indefinite length of time. By working 
in connection with some movement of public interest you 
will be helping some worthy cause, you will increase your 
own profits, and you will introduce your magazine to 
many people who will become “steadies.” While you are 
giving part of your profits to the society or association 
your margin on these sales to society members will be less 
than on regular orders, but you will get a lot of new cus¬ 
tomers who would not otherwise buy, and will build up 
a big business that will help you win prizes for years to 
come. 

Doesn’t this look pretty good to you ? 


The Endless-Chain Plan 

This plan is like a boulder rolling down a mountain¬ 
side—after it is started there is no stopping it. 

We’ll suppose that you already have a few customers. 
See page 2. When you deliver their copies next week 
carry a little notebook with you. Ask each customer to 
give you the names of at least two friends who are not 
regular readers of your magazine but wdio ought to be. 
Write down carefully the names and addresses of the per¬ 
sons named to you in this way. When you have served 
all your “steadies” you will then have a good-sized list of 
prospects to canvass. 

Before you start out to call on these prospects study 
carefully about the five steps that make up a sale (see 
page 79). First you will w^ant to get each prospect’s 
attention. Your call itself will do that. 

Then you will want to arouse his interest. Here’s 
where a good talking-point comes into play. Let’s suppose 
you are calling on Mr. Brown: 



30 







“Mr. Brown, a good friend of yours, Mr. Jones, the 
banker, is one of my customers for The Saturday Even¬ 
ing Post, and he likes the magazine very much. He is 
sure you will be interested in reading each issue and has 
asked me to call and take your order.” 

When you mention Mr. Jones Mr. Brown will begin to 
“sit up and take notice,” and when you say that you have 
called to take Mr. Brown’s order he will be curious to see 
how you will go about it. 

His interest can be changed into a desire to buy a copy 
each week by showing him some of the leading articles in 
the current issue. Get him to finger through the pages of 
the copy you carry. Tell him about some of our regular 
contributors: Samuel G. Blythe, James H. Collins, Will 
Irwin, Montague Glass, Dr. Woods Hutchinson, and so on. 
You will not have to dwell very long on the merits of The 
Post. Almost everybody knows them. 

Every time you make a call don’t forget that you are 
building an endless chain of customers. Get every one you 
call on, whether or not they buy a copy for themselves, to 
name one or two other persons who may want to buy. 
Before you have finished you will be referred to almost 
every one in town if you always ask the question, “Don’t 
you know somebody who will buy?” 

There is no limit to the amount of business this plan 
may bring you. It opens up unexpected possibilities at 
every point. It brought a Shetland pony to Cyril Eicherly. 
Cyril knew that he was mighty close to the pony. He 
realized that it was up to him—and him alone. He made 
up his mind to get that pony now , so he went right out with 
his order-book and tackled the first man he met (it happened 
to be Doctor Moorhead); hit his prospect just right and 
signed him up for thirteen weeks’ regular delivery. 






Did Cyril stop then and go home? Not much. He 
was just getting his blood up. He said: “Now, Doctor, 
don’t you know some one else who is not buying The 
Post and who ought to take it from me?” 

The doctor thought a moment. Yes, he knew a man 
who was interested in good things in the way of maga¬ 
zines. He would gladly give Cyril a card of introduction 
to Mr. Lynch, the auctioneer. Cyril hastened over to 
Mr. Lynch’s office and found him getting ready to drive 
out to a football game. 

It looked good to Mr. Lynch to have The Post deliv¬ 
ered to him each week without extra charge. Mr. Lynch 
signed the order-blank at once, thinking at the same time 
it was a splendid chance to help a deserving boy. Then 
he told Cyril to jump in. Cyril did so and Mr. Lynch 
drove him to the field and out in front of the grandstand. 
There, before the “kick-off,” he made a little speech to the 
people from the stand and introduced Cyril to the crowd. 
After he had told them that Cyril was out to get a pony 
Cyril went through the crowd and filled two order-books 
with signatures in just a few moments. He would not 
have filled those two books if he hadn’t met Mr. Lynch. 
He would not have met Mr. Lynch if he hadn’t asked 
Dr. Moorhead if he “didn’t know some one else.” Cyril 
now finds it much easier to deliver his copies by pony 
than on foot. 

Be sure to try the endless-chain plan. It may bring 
you a pony or something you want just as much from the 
Rebate Book. 

The Prize Plan 

Our older boys use the following plan with good results: 
The idea is to get customers to agree to buy from you each 



32 











week until you get the prize you are after. You doubtless 
have a friend who is a stenographer in a business office. 
Get her to typewrite at the top of a sheet of paper this 
promise: “We, the undersigned, agree to buy The Satur¬ 
day Evening Post each week from Master-until 

he earns the tool chest” [or whatever prize in the Rebate 
Book you have your eye on]. 

With this special blank in hand you are in a position 
to clinch the deal with any person who, after you have 
explained the merits of The Post, still hesitates to buy. 

The Get-There Plan 

If you mean business—and you do or you would not 
have read this far—send us, on the inclosed blank, a list of 
at least ten names and addresses of people who at present 
are not readers of The Post, but who ought to buy a copy 
from you each week. When we receive this list from you 
we will send without charge some copies—one for each 
person on your list. At the same time we will send to 
each an attractive card, telling him that the copy has been 
sent at your request. 

At the same time we will send you a sample of the card 
we have sent these prospects. You can then call on them 
to request their order for a copy each week. 

In this way you can start a big advertising campaign 
for new customers. You can give each prospect a chance 
to read a copy of The Post before you ask him to buy from 
you. He will be put in personal touch with The Post and 
will receive our card naming you before you see him. The 
average man you approach in this way will shell out a nickel 
at once. 



33 











Below is a reproduction of the “sales tickler” which 
will be sent to the persons you name: 


j) /m/ 

/tier (Ucrvo dr /fiAMt/nt: AX*& ivUvt 

Qoot AA/ A. AhC /WUL^dAWit. A-A'wfc -U: ^ ©^- COv^A/ 
<viA^/w^vv^t'X<r 'vvKrvt- aJro^L- ^)/m C-*^ 

-A<rtrv^ _£© XsSjL AL> <£) 

-iptrx/ /WMTVX^ A*-a^t£.OLA^ 

/u^t^muA(jy " ^Hmx- Att. c9 /uz-a^fc 

< ^0^<— /tft- X-O ovuo- /vsd^L. 

i*vC' XjyA^Z* < 6 ^^AuAt» 
OS>/*w ^zWvi^OL yy^.<vt *iav^ /VUUuO 

'liWj **“% 

AetNT For 


JT 



THE 
SATURDAY 
EVENING 
POST 


STRICT ADDRESS 


The College Plan 

If you live in a college town you should see the dean 
or the curator and get permission to sell on the campus. 

Master Willie Carroll and his brother, of Chicago, and 
many other boys have proved the value of this plan. The 
Carroll boys sold two hundred copies a week on and near 
the Chicago University campus. The boys secured the 
right to sell on the campus from the late Dr. William R. 
Harper himself. On the following page is a copy of Doctor 
Harper’s reply to Willie Carroll’s letter: 


Rah! Rah! Rah! 
« *» ♦» 

pr P! 

Rah! Rah! Rah? 



34 
















The father of the Carroll brothers is a well-known 
physician. He encouraged the boys to sell The Post for 
the business training which the work affords, not because 
they needed the money. 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

Founded by John D. Rockefeller 
Office of the President 

Chicago, June 14. 

Master Willie Carroll, -Street, Chicago. 

My Dear Master Willie :—This letter presented to any 
person on the University Grounds will give you permis¬ 
sion to sell The Saturday Evening Post. It is under¬ 
stood that you will not make too much noise and that 
this permit may be revoked at any time. 

Yours very truly, 

(Signed) WILLIAM R. HARPER. 


Out of gratitude to Doctor Harper for his kindness the 
Carroll boys gave $5.00 from their savings for the Doctor 
Harper Memorial Library. On the following page is a 
copy of the receipt given the boys: 


35 













THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

Founded by John D. Rockefeller 
Office of the Counsel and Business Manager 

Chicago, February 17. 

Received from William Edward Carroll and Charles C. 
Cary Carroll Five and OO/lOO Dollars toward the W. R. 
Harper Memorial Library Fund. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, 
$5.00 By C. L. Green. 


These copies of Doctor Harper’s letter and of the 
University official’s receipt were taken from the originals, 
which were loaned to us by Master Willie Carroll himself. 

The Plan of Sub-Agents 

Any boy clever enough to get one hundred customers 
of his own is also shrewd enough to see the advantage of 
getting other boys to help him. For pointers on how to 
get them read Mark Twain’s book, “Tom Sawyer.” Read 
how Tom whitewashed the fence. 

Going it alone is all right in its way. We know you can 
cover singlehanded the heart of your town—but how about 
the outlying districts ? 

Look over that line of houses on the other side of the 
city which you seldom have a chance to visit. In them live 
intelligent, prosperous people. Make that early train 
some morning before school—the one so many traveling 
men come on. Ride with the rural mail-carrier. More 
than one hundred families receive mail from him, and 
scarcely a mail-box sees your magazine. Look in at the 


36 





ten-cent barns. You will find a lot of farmers there with 
pockets full of dollars after selling their produce. 

It would take a number of boys to visit these and every 
other equally-good place every week, wouldn’t it? Honest, 
now! Wouldn’t it? 

A lot of copies can be sold at places you seldom visit. 
It seems plain, doesn’t it? 

Then why not get other boys to help you, so that you 
will have at least one boy at each of these points every week? 
The big merchants of the world are not satisfied with half 
the profits their trade will pay. The “Marshall Fields” 
and the “John Wanamakers” are out for all the profits 
in sight. 

We want to tell you about Tommy Collette. He lives 
in a good, big town in Tennessee, but going it alone he sold 
only a few copies each week. Alone he couldn’t reach all 
the people there. 

So he induced a number of his boy friends to help him. 
All these boys owned burros—there are lots of them down 
in that country—and within a short time these boys 
increased the output two hundred copies a week. It was 
slow, hard work—work that required them to meet many 
objections from prospects, but these boys stuck to it. 
Johnson City then had a population of 4645. They were 
then selling one copy to every twenty-three persons. 

One day Tommy called the boys together to talk over 
plans for getting more customers. The ground looked 
rough, but they all agreed that they could sell more copies 
than one to every twenty-three persons. “We’ll use the 
burros and get to every house in town,” said Tommy. 

The boys resumed work next morning. They kept at it 
every spare moment. More customers responded to their 
appeals and they worked even harder. When the town 



37 












had been covered and all the orders counted they had over 
five hundred customers. One copy of The Post to every 
nine people. This was a record to be proud of. 

A short time ago an article describing the good roads 
in and around Johnson City appeared in The Post. As 
soon as Tommy received the Forecast he again called the 
boys together. “This is the time we celebrate,” said 
Tommy. He asked each boy how many copies he could 
sell. After adding up the list he ordered that number. 

Bright and early Thursday morning every boy was on 
hand to receive his supply. Fired with enthusiasm, these 
determined Southern lads went to work with a will, and 
when the week was over 1500 copies had been sold. A copy 
of The Post was in the hands of every third person in 
Johnson City. 

Tommy was right. That was the time they celebrated— 
and it was a record-breaking way in which to do it. 

Would Tommy have sold one copy for every three 
persons if he had gone at it single-handed? Try the plan 
of sub-agents. 

The Purchasing-Agent Plan 

We believe in sticking to one thing and making that a 
success before taking up anything else. But sometimes 
a side-line will enable a salesman to make a success of 
his main-line. 

Salesmen choose side-lines which will help them “get 
in right” with certain prospects who are difficult to reach 
with their regular lines. That is, the side-lines are used to 
gain the courteous attention of prospects who have acted 
like bears when approached with the salesmen’s main-lines. 

One good side-line for a Curtis boy is that of purchasing 
agent. Let us explain: 

There are many gray-haired men and women in your 
town who are not as sure-footed as in their younger days. 


38 









and who are living quiet, retired lives—people in comfort¬ 
able circumstances, but without automobiles or carriages. 
Make a list of the people in this class—of the aged grand¬ 
fathers and grandmothers, of the aged bachelors and 
maiden ladies, of the gray-haired aunts and uncles of 
everybody you know. They are the people who need a 
purchasing agent on blustery, slippery, stormy days. 

They need help to bring them provisions, groceries and 
dry-goods in the winter even more than in summer—these 
people of advancing years, whose homes are at a distance 
from the business part of town. They go shopping just as 
seldom as they can—these venerable ladies and gentlemen, 
whose young people have grown up and gone away and 
left the old folks alone. Not a day passes but they wish 
for some bright, active boy to get the mail or to go shop¬ 
ping for them. Make a list of all these people and call on 
them at once. Explain that you will be glad to run errands 
for them. Say to them that you like cold weather, and 
that the more ice there is the better you are pleased; then 
add: “I’ll be your purchasing agent and will attend to 
your errands if you will take The Post from me.” 

The old folks won’t take advantage of you. They 
won’t expect you to run your legs off without getting a fair 
return. If some of them have more errands to run in a 
week than your profit on a single magazine amounts to 
they’ll pay you something extra. You will be a big help to 
them, and for that assistance from you each one will be 
glad to take your magazines from you—and even more, 
the customers you serve in this way will talk about 
you to their cronies. Each one will tell his friends what an 
enterprising, businesslike boy serves him. All this will 
bring more business to you. 


39 








Map Out Each Day’s Work 

Each week a lot of would-be Curtis boys stand on the 
side-lines watching our agents and wishing in a vague way 
to break into our selling-game. No boy can do anything 
worth while unless he rolls up his shirt sleeves and pitches 
in. Even our own boys who, fired by the zeal of accom¬ 
plishing something, have started in to sell, cannot make 
good unless they map out their work—and then do it. 

Every Curtis boy can learn to be right-handed in the 
use of words. He has a glib tongue. He can wiggle it in 
winning ways. 

Reading about the game, thinking about it, hearing 
about it, may start your mind in the right direction, but 
you will never become a Curtis salesman until you begin to 
practice the plays and stunts peculiar to the game. 

When you start out with your copies, if you don’t know 
where you are going you are as apt to come to grief as a 
sleepwalker in the dark. If, at the beginning of the day, 
you don’t know how long you’re going to play the selling- 
game that day, or whom you are going to call on, or what 
articles you are going to play strongest, you will be apt to 
quit too soon or work to no purpose. You will be just so 
much further away from the bicycle or the camping outfit 
or the baseball suit you want. Have a fixed schedule of 
work. Each morning determine how long you will play 
the game that day, what persons you are going to see, what 
stunts you are going to pull off. Then play out the inning 
as you have planned it. 

“Don’t need our last bat!” is often the riotous call that 
breaks up a ball game in the middle of the ninth inning. 
Our selling-game isn’t played that way. Have a fixed 
schedule of work. Play out the game. 


Tack 



40 








Summer Plans 

In summer you can use many good plans for getting 
customers. In winter the days grow dark so early that 
there is little chance of working among the residences after 
six o’clock. But during the longer days the best time to 
work in the residence section is in the evening. Then you 
will find the people sitting out on the front porches, on the 
lawns, on settees, in hammocks and the like, willing and 
ready to read. 

Arrange to work an hour each evening throughout the 
week. Have an early supper, so that you can start out 
promptly, and go up one street and down the other, inter¬ 
viewing people sitting outdoors. We have a boy in New 
York who secured an average of over fifteen customers 
every evening in this way. You can figure out how many 
extra Rebate Vouchers it brought him. 

During the middle of the day if you find trade dull in 
the business district go to the public park or the town 
common. In the hot weather thousands of people seek 
cool spots in city parks, as well as at the watering places 
of resort towns. We have a boy in New York City who 
sells from 250 to 300 copies every week to passers-by 
along Riverside Drive. In addition to the fun of making 
sales he enjoys the brisk tramp along the bank of the 
Hudson River. 

In Buffalo one boy sells several hundred copies weekly 
to passengers going aboard boats for Cleveland and 
Detroit. In Cleveland scores of boys confine themselves 
entirely to the suburban trolleys, the cars going to and 
coming from Euclid Beach and other summer resorts. 
Our boy agent in Brandon, Manitoba, recently increased 
his order to supply the demand created by a street fair. 



41 










In Sault Ste. Marie the boys come pretty near “taking 
the cake.” At this city the great locks connect Lake 
Superior and Lake Huron. The steamship officials for¬ 
bade them coming aboard the steamers when they were 
in the locks, and it used to be that only those few pas¬ 
sengers who came down the gang-plank to stretch their 
legs on the wharf bought copies. 

But what the boys did was this: They procured a small 
basket and fastened it to the end of a long fishing-pole and, 
armed with a goodly supply of Posts, awaited the arrival 
of the steamers. When one of the big ships came in the 
boys got busy. Putting a copy of The Post in the basket, 
they hoisted the basket up to the deck of the steamship. 
As soon as the passenger took The Post and dropped his 
nickel in the basket the latter was lowered, the nickel put 
in the boy’s pocket and another Post placed in the basket 
and raised to the steamer’s deck. “I give up,” said one 
man; “any boy who is smart enough to think of this means 
of reaching me is deserving of business. I won’t miss the 
nickel and the magazine will do me good.” 

There are one hundred and one places to sell copies in 
summer where none could have been sold last winter. 
Hundreds of live boys are discovering these places. There 
are lots of them in your town. Here is a brief summary of 
good points where customers may be found during the 
summer months: 

On the clubhouse steps 
On the golf links 
In the park 

At the summer hotel or boarding-house 
In the railroad depot 
At the wharf 


42 












On board excursion trains and trolleys 
At the picnic grounds 
At the fair grounds 
At the baseball grounds. 

In winter or summer, regular customers may be found 
in different places, as follows: 

Office buildings 
Chamber of Commerce 
Custom House 
Stock Exchange 
Post-Office 
Court House 
Hospitals 
Fire stations 
Apartment houses 
Railroad offices (freight as well as passenger) 

Railroad depots 
Street railway waiting-rooms 
Telephone offices 
Police stations 

Colleges and schools of all kinds. 

Hotels—in the lobbies and sometimes by getting 
permission to place copies for sale on the cigar counters. 

Restaurants—often you can obtain the privilege of 
placing your copies for sale on a cigar case or at the 
cashier’s desk. 

The Sample Copy Plan 

The name of this plan explains what it is. How it gets 
results is best shown by a story about a little shrimp of a 
lad with a tousled red head. His name is Thomas Troy. 
He is ten years old. Mr. R. B. Kuehns, Assistant Manager 



43 












of the Niles-Bement-Pond Company, New York City, 
writes us about him as follows: 

“My little newsy, Thomas Troy, is a newcomer in the 
business. Shy at first, he would cautiously open my office 
door, remove his cap, and with fear and apprehension 
place my newspaper on my desk and disappear without 
waiting for his penny. The next day I instructed him how 
to take out a little drawer in my desk, take a penny and 
push the drawer back without disturbing me. 

“One evening as I closed my desk I noticed a Saturday 
Evening Post in the fold of my evening paper. I took 
both with me and read both. The Post incident slipped 
my mind until the following Thursday, when Thomas 
informed me that there were no more pennies in the 
drawer. I gave him a dime, and he returned to me nine 
pennies, keeping one for the evening paper. He also left 
with me another copy of The Post, without asking pay¬ 
ment or permission. I read the second Post that night on 
the way home. 

“The following Thursday the boy abruptly asked: 
‘Do you like the stories in The Post, sir?* 

“My smile must have encouraged him, for the lad 
immediately picked up courage and said that he would 
leave a copy for me every Thursday if I wished. Thus I 
became a regular Post reader. I made a number of inquiries 
in regard to Thomas Troy and gleaned the following facts: 

“The first time he left a sample copy with me he left 
about twenty copies at various offices in the building. 
Three copies were returned the following evening with, 
‘You must have left this by mistake/ 

“The next Thursday another sample copy was left at 
twenty different desks, as before. The third week an 
inquiry was made at each desk, with the result that he not 











only delivers twenty copies in the Trinity Building, but also 
received payment for most of the sample copies he had 
left the previous weeks. 

‘‘This boy is a coming advertising man—business 
man. He may be shy and lack the bravado of the average 
urchin who at first may win, and later annoys, but in the 
long run he is the one who will command the greatest 
attention and hold it. I asked him if he was not afraid of 
distributing sample copies so freely, and he replied that he 
was careful to leave a copy only at the desks of such men as 
he felt would be responsible.” 

Thomas Troy is dead right. Try the sample plan. You 
will find it good in the long run, even if at first you have to 
sacrifice some of your profits. Bear this in mind: Only 
the “meanest man in the world” will take advantage of 
you. You cannot lose. 

Unexpected Opportunities 

You never can tell when a fair or a benefit show or a 
boat race or a baseball game is going to give you a chance 
to sell lots of extra copies. There are too many “unex¬ 
pected opportunities” for us to tell you all about them. 
You must be on the lookout, as George Blount was when 
the circus came to town. “Hurrah! The circus is com¬ 
ing ! ” shouted George, as, with empty Post bag, he rushed 
panting into the house for more copies. If I don’t sell some 
extras to the visitors in town on circus day, my name’s not 
George Blount.” 

Everybody who has been in a small town on circus day 
knows how people flock in from miles around to see the 
parade and the performance. Every camel and every 
elephant is a marvel in itself. Compared with people in 
small towns, city folks don’t know what a real circus day is. 
Hours before daylight the freight-yard is thronged with 














little urchins, who would raise an awful howl if asked to 
get up in time to draw water or split kindlings before 
breakfast. They are waiting for the first section of the 
long-looked-for circus to arrive. 

George Blount was among the number awaiting the 
arrival of the circus in Wilson, but he was there for busi¬ 
ness, not for fun. As soon as the first train pulled in George 
singled out the manager. “I want to make a dicker with 
you to put a big sign on the biggest elephant in the 
parade,” said George. “I am agent for The Curtis Pub¬ 
lishing Company here, and I want to sell more Saturday 
Evening Posts than have ever been sold here. It will be 
a bully chance to do business with hundreds of visitors 
who will be in town to attend the show. I have the sign 
all painted, and have ordered several hundred extra 
copies.” 

Perhaps it was George’s spunk, perhaps it was the sheer 
absurdity of the stunt, but, anyhow, bursting into a hearty 
laugh, the manager told George to go ahead. 

The morning turned out bright and clear, and long 
before ten o’clock, the hour of the parade, the streets were 
packed with pleasure-seekers from near-by villages and 
farms. At last a cry was echoed down the line: “Here 
they come!” And soon the first wagons of the parade 
came rumbling past. And what a shout went up as George 
appeared astride an elephant decked out with a huge sign, 
and a clown on each side handing out copies and raking 
in nickels. 

Throughout the afternoon and the evening George 
handed out copies from the elephants’ inclosure. The 
good-natured people were eager to spend their money. 
George took in nickel after nickel. He counted up his profits 
that night and found he had sold over 800 copies. Tired 


46 







with the long day’s work, but happy as a king, he trudged 
off to bed, vowing it was the best circus day he had 
ever known. 



Keep your eyes open for unexpected opportunities. 
Some day you may sell 800 copies, as George Blount did. 

Letters from 519 Customers 

As we said before, we recently asked a number of new 
readers how they were induced to buy The Post. Five 
hundred nineteen persons answered our inquiry—five hun¬ 
dred nineteen enthusiastic “steadies” who previously 
knew The Post only by name and then cared nothing 
about it. Each of these customers told us precisely why 


47 









he bought his first copy, and why he now buys from kis 
particular boy. 

How would you like to see five hundred nineteen eager 
Post readers assembled in the Opera House, see them rise 
one after the other and hear them tell you their reasons for 
buying? You will probably never attend such a meeting. 
You may never hear such testimony. But you can read it. 
The reasons why these five hundred nineteen customers 
bought their first copies, and continue to buy, are as follows: 

Fifty-three customers bought because the boys who served 
them knew the contents of that issue and talked about that. 

Forty-one customers bought because the boys who 
served them introduced themselves by holding up the 
front covers. 

Forty customers bought because the boys who served 
them persisted and kept on talking even after their prospects 
said “ Get Out !” 

Thirty-seven customers bought because they were 
impressed by the respectful manner of the boys who 
approached them. 

Thirty-six customers bought because of the bright 
smiles of their boys. 

Thirty customers bought because they saw that their 
boys believed each customer would get his money's worth. 

Twenty-eight customers bought because the boys urged 
the merit of a serial story. 

Twenty-seven customers, largely women, bought from 
Post boys who presented a neat and cleanly appearance. 

Twenty-four customers bought from boys whose 
earnestness was impressive. 

Twenty-three customers bought from boys who talked 


48 








about their customers' reasons for wanting rather than the 
boys' reasons for selling the magazine. 

Twenty-one customers bought only after first “joshing ” 
or teasing the boys. (Stick to ’em if they start to kid you.) 

Twenty customers bought from boys who talked about 
the “Who's Who" page. 

Fourteen customers bought from boys who were willing 
to trust them until the next week. 

Thirteen customers who first said they couldn’t afford it 
bought from boys who showed them an article entitled “How 
to Borrow Money." 

Twelve customers bought from boys who said, “Thank 
you." 

Ten customers bought from boys who were willing to 
go to any inconvenience to deliver. 

Ten customers were first induced to thumb over the 
pages, and so bought after seeing articles which interested 
them. 

Ten customers bought from boys who attracted their 
attention by shrewdly-worded calls , such as “Here's Your 
Post,” and “Sir, you have forgotten something." 

Only nine bought from boys who made a prize appeal. 
(You are interested in the prizes. If your customers are 
interested in the magazines, talk their reasons for needing, 
not your reasons for selling, and you will sell more copies 
than by any prize appeal.) 

Certain of these five hundred nineteen customers 
refused to buy at first. We asked them why. 

Eight refused to buy from boys who yelled boisterously 
at them. 

Five refused to buy from boys who made begging appeals. 

Two refused to buy from boys who were ignorant of the 
contents of the magazine. 


49 







C3> 




CHAPTER IV 

What to Sell to Women 

T HE Ladies’ Home Journal is the foremost maga¬ 
zine for women, just as The Saturday Evening 
Post is the most popular magazine for men. You 
should sell both magazines. Then you will find a customer 
in practically every grown person. Your profits will be 
doubled. Your Vouchers—well, before you know it you 
will have enough for that bicycle. 

Let us run over a list of the people who will buy The 
Journal from you. 

First: There is the housewife. She is almost always at 
home, and you are dead sure of finding something in each 
issue that will make her buy it, if you point it out to her. 
All you have to do is to learn her hobby or her particular 
household problem—and open The Journal to some 
article that bears on it. 

Second: Mothers. In every home where there are chil¬ 
dren you will find some one planning, working and praying 
for their welfare. You know who it is—their mother. 
Now, in every issue of The Journal are published strong 
and appropriate articles—articles which any mother will 
be eager to read as soon as you tell her about them. “ How 
I Taught My Children About Money” and “The Personal 
Experiences of Mothers” are among these. Be sure to try 
each home in which there are children. 

Third: The business man. Most business men are mar¬ 
ried and have wives and daughters at home. Just as they 
buy The Post for themselves they will buy The Journal 
for their women folks, Put it up to them to do so. 


50 







Fourth: Shop girls. Women whose purses are none too 
full are always on the lookout for ways and means to live 
more cheaply. The Journal tells how to make clothes 
and how to re-make them—how to trim hats and how to 
re-trim them—how to make money, how to save it. 

Fifth: Shoppers. In and out of the stores in business 
sections you will see streams of women doing the day's 
shopping. They are buying everything the household needs, 
from the kitchen to the garret, but unless you remind 
them they'll go home without the evening's reading. 
Shoppers always have lots of change with them. They are 
prepared to carry their packages and are ready buyers. 

Sixth: Theatrical people are eager readers. The Journal 
contains articles and stories such as “My Days With Maude 
Adams in the Desert,'' “Playing Tennis With Sarah Bern¬ 
hardt " and “ Why Actresses' Dresses Are Effective,” which 
sell like hot-cakes, when you stand outside the theater and 
accost people as they enter and as they leave. Don’t forget 
that the people on both sides of the footlights are interested. 

Seventh: Fiction lovers . If anybody loves a good story 
it's a schoolgirl, and she will find it in The Journal. If 
there is a girls' school or a girls' college in your town be 
sure to sell The Journal to the students. Read “The 
College Plan,” page 34. 

Eighth: Pianists. Most women are musical. They 
love music whether or not they can sing or play any instru¬ 
ment, and they'll find on Josef Hofmann's page plenty of 
reason for buying The Journal each month. Open the 
magazine and show them Mr. Hofmann's replies to 
inquiries, and the page of piano music. 

Ninth: Churchgoers. All church people, the minister 
and the congregation alike, will find “The Minister's 


51 









Social Helper” of great assistance in the church work. 
Play this up and you’ll get lots of readers among the 
churchgoers. 

Dressmakers, milliners, architects, decorators, florists, 
suburbanites whose hobby is the flower garden—all these 
will buy The Journal if you drive home as an inducement 
the articles which are written for them. 

In short, readers of The Journal are to be found every¬ 
where, in all classes, ages and kinds of people, and every 
customer you can get is worth half a dollar a year to you 
and six Vouchers—and you only have to deliver twelve 
copies to get them. 

These people are among those who will read The Jour¬ 
nal. They’ll read it if you show them why they should. 
But you’ll have to watch out for traps, just as you will 
when selling The Post. 



JOURNAL Traps 

The traps described on page 11 will be waiting for you— 
your Journal prospects will try to “put you off.” You 
will want to watch out especially for the two traps we’re 
about to mention. 


52 















“I Must Ask My Husband” 

When a lady tells you she must ask her husband you 
are almost sure to get her as a customer—if you handle her 
tactfully. In the first place, when a woman says this you 
have convinced her that she needs The Journal. She 
is only waiting to see what her husband says. As far as 
she is concerned you have landed the order. 

Now, you don’t want to go through the performance again 
and convince her husband after you have already convinced 
her. Get her signature right on the spot. Tell her this: 

“Why, Mrs. Jones, I am sure that if your husband 
knew that you want The Journal he couldn’t give me the 
fifteen cents quick enough. After all the bigger things he 
has done for you he will not interfere in a matter involving 
so little money. On the other hand, he will be agreeably 
surprised when he comes home tonight and finds your little 
girl cutting out “Flossie Fisher’s Funnies.” You spend 
more time at home than he does and he knows that you are 
the best judge of what the home needs. ” 

“Too Busy to Read THE JOURNAL” 

If a woman tells you this you may be sure she doesn’t 
realize how The Journal will help her. She thinks it has 
good stories only. She doesn’t know that every month 
The Journal contains short cuts on housekeeping that 
will lighten her work. 

We are reminded of a letter from Mrs. Lynch, a lady 
who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She writes us how 
Tommy Baird, a ten-year-old Curtis boy, secured her 
order for The Journal. 

Mrs. Lynch was standing in a very-much-disordered 
kitchen with a perplexed look on her face. “Dear me!” 


53 









she exclaimed nervously. “Everything seems to come at 
once. Here’s the house all topsy-turvy from cleaning and 
the paperhangers—and now I have to put up the children’s 
lunches, and I can’t think of a thing to make them up 
from.” 

As she was speaking the doorbell rang. “Goodness!” 
she exclaimed, as she started hurriedly to the door. “How 
that startled me! ” 

Opening the door, she saw Tommy standing on the top 
step, holding his copy in his hand. 

“Good-morning,” he said, quickly and politely. “I am 
selling The Ladies’ Home Journal. Will you buy a copy ? 
Just glance through it,” he added, as he extended a copy 
of The Journal and opened at “The Springtime Garden 
and House.” 

“Oh, I can’t stop to look at it now. I have all the 
children’s lunches to make up,” said Mrs. Lynch, making 
a move as if to go inside. 

Hearing her, the lad hastily opened the magazine at 
another page and held it out to her. “If you have to put 
up school lunches every day,” he said, “here’s an article 
that will help you. It tells lots of things about how to 
put up school lunches.” 

She took a glance at the article. The words that 
caught her eye were “Putting Up a School Lunch is Not 
Troublesome.” 

“Well, that’s interesting,” thought Mrs. Lynch. “I 
will take this copy.” Then she hunted up her pocketbook 
and paid for it. “Thank you,” said Tommy. “I will 
come and see you again with the next issue.” 

Do you see why Tommy sold The Journal to Mrs. 
Lynch? He knew the contents of the magazine so well 
that when he heard her complaining about having to put 


54 







Onward* men! 



up lunches for the children there flashed into his mind the 
very article which would interest her. 

Special JOURNAL Selling-Plans 

The selling-plans worked out by our champion boys— 
see pages 27 to 49 —hold good for The Journal as well 
as for The Post. You can use the “Exchange Plan” in 
selling The Journal. The butcher, the baker, the candle¬ 
stick maker—they have wives at home. They ought to 
carry The Journal home as well as The Post. 

The “Society Plan” will work finely—especially when 
you offer to give part of your profits to the Women’s Guild, 
to the Y. W. C. A., or to some other project in which women 
especially are interested. 

The “Endless-Chain Plan” will get you lots of cus¬ 
tomers. The “Prize Plan” will interest your customers in 
your efforts to get that tool chest or bicycle lamp, and 
they will want to help you out. The “Get-There Plan” is 
for The Post alone, but the “College Plan,” if tried at 
a woman’s school or college, will sell lots of copies for you. 

You can readily get other boys to help you—and you’ll 
want to if you sell lots of Journals, because The Journal 
is a heavier magazine. Try the “ Plan of Sub-Agents.” 

The “Purchasing-Agent Plan” wins women every¬ 
where. Most women are far too busy with their household 
work to go downtown after that cake of yeast they need 
for tomorrow’s baking, or for the strawberries for supper. 
They’ll jump at the chance if you’ll offer your services, and 
will gladly buy a copy of The Journal to show their 
good will. 

But there are other plans, too, that will enable you to 
sell more and more Journals. These plans are not Post 
plans—so we haven’t mentioned them until now. The first is: 


55 



Using a Name 

The strong points of this plan are brought out in the 
following story about Jack Raille: 

“Mrs. Phillips is engaged and can’t see you now,” said 
her maid, who answered the bell. “Please give her this,” 
replied Jack, offering a card like the following: 


Master Jack Raille 


Jack chuckled softly to himself as the servant dis¬ 
appeared to find her mistress. A wise woman is Jack’s 
mother. She had coached him well. 

Mrs. Raille plays the piano well. Enrico Caruso’s love 
waltz, “Love’s Torment,” published in the June number of 
The Ladies’ Home Journal, caught her fancy. Jack’s 
appeal to his mother for help in his effort to sell the 
twenty-five copies he had ordered fell on good ground. 

“I’ll tell you what to do, Jack,” she said brightly. 
“Take this copy bearing your name written above ‘With 
my compliments,’ to Mrs. J. Collings Weatherbee, and ask 
her to try the Caruso waltz on the piano. If she likes it 
ask permission to recommend it to her friends, then come 
and tell me what she says.” 












Mrs. J. Collings Weatherbee is a prominent social 
leader in the city, as well as a musical critic of prominence. 
Mrs. Weatherbee praised the Caruso waltz, bought the 
copy and gave Jack the privilege of using her name. 

Mrs. Raille then prepared for Jack a list of names and 
addresses of twenty-five women in the Weatherbee set 
who play the piano or who have daughters that play. 
Upon a number of Jack’s cards Mrs. Raille wrote the magic 
words which induced Mrs. Phillips to invite Jack in. 

“Good-morning, Mrs. Phillips. Mrs. Weatherbee 
believes you will enjoy this new Caruso waltz. She likes 
it immensely.” 

Mrs. Phillips opened the piano then and there and ran 
over the notes hastily, and, of course, her opinion of the 
waltz agreed with that of Mrs. Weatherbee. 

“The waltz has been published only in The Ladies’ 
Home Journal,” continued Jack; “the price is fifteen 
cents. Selling The Journal, you know, and would like to 
bring you a copy of each issue. Mrs. Weatherbee is one of 
my customers.” 

Mrs. Phillips bought the copy. 

Nothing in a name! The use of that name and story 
about Mrs. Weatherbee obtained for Jack a house-after¬ 
house entrance which put into his pocket the first dollar 
he obtained selling The Journal, and it is certain that 
Jack will sell the magazine to these women as long as he 
continues. 

You may not find a Caruso waltz in each issue of The 
Journal; probably you will never find a similar page in 
The Post, but you will find some story or article in each 
number of each magazine which will enable you to work 
Jack Raille’s plan in your neighborhood. 


57 








Talk About the Children 

Often a woman won’t buy a copy for herself, but if you 
mention her children and point out something they would 
like she will scurry upstairs after your fifteen cents. One 
of our boys writes: 

“When I go to canvass for customers I make it a point 
to stop at every house where I know there is a little girl. 
If she is out front, so much the better. If not, I try to see 
her before I ask her mother to buy. This is what I do: 
I open my sample copy of The Journal to the ‘Flossie 
Fisher’s Funnies ’ page. Then I say to the little girl, ‘ Aren’t 
these funny ? Don’t you wish you had them ? ’ Of course, 
she says she does wish she had them, and then I say to her, 
‘Well, if your mama buys The Ladies’ Home Journal 
from me you will get them and she will get a mighty 
fine magazine.’ 

“In no time she has made up her mind that she just 
has to have that page, and in we go to see her mother. And 
you ought to see those girls teasing their mothers to take 
The Journal. And then I tell the lady what a fine mag¬ 
azine The Journal is, and I show her all the important 
articles and stories The Journal has. 

“My sales of The Journal have been increasing every 
week, and it has not been nearly as hard as I thought it 
would be when I started. The first five copies were the 
hardest that I had to sell, but they were not as hard as 
I thought they would be. Since I got the line of Journal 
talk down, and worked out this scheme with the little girls 
and the ‘Flossie Fisher’s Funnies’ page, new customers have 
been coming my way every month. I don’t mind the heat, 
the profits are good, and it certainly is fun to see those 
little girls make their mothers buy The Journal from me.” 


58 










Ask Customers to Get Prospects 

This plan is similar to the Endless - Chain Plan (see 
page 30), but is different in this respect: Your customers 
'personally get new readers for you. If you can interest one 
or more of your Journal customers in your work and in 
your efforts to procure a watch or a camera, or some other 
definite Prize, she will put in a good word for you at the 
sewing circles, church meetings and other gatherings which 
she attends. From her you can get the names of the ladies 
to whom she spoke; then, when you approach them you 
will only need to announce yourself to make the sale. 



59 








CHAPTER V 


Another Source of Profits 


HE Country Gentleman is the third Curtis publi¬ 
cation. It is the oldest farming magazine in the 



JL world. We bought it recently, and intend to make 
it the most widely-read farm journal in the country. 

How are we going to do this? By giving you money, 
Vouchers and Prizes such as you receive for selling The 
Post and The Journal. By making The Gentleman such 
an interesting, authoritative and useful magazine that farm¬ 
ers, suburbanites and city people, all alike, will be waiting 
for Thursday to buy their copies—women as well as men. 

To whom, then, are you going to sell The Gentleman? 

Sell to your Post customers. Tell them that The 
Gentleman is published by The Curtis Publishing Com¬ 
pany, the Company back of The Saturday Evening 
Post, and they will know that it is good. If they don’t 
buy at first, leave a copy with them (see the Sample Plan, 
page 43), and ask them to look it over. The proof of the 
pudding is in the eating—a taste of The Gentleman, and 
they’ll want it every week. 

Of course, the farmer will buy The Gentleman —if he 
hasn’t done so already. Primarily the magazine is for him. 
It covers every phase of his business. It teaches him how 
to grow more wheat per acre, how to sell it and make more 
money, how to feed his livestock to get the best results, 
how to paint his barns so that they will stay painted. Look 
through a copy. See for yourself what splendid articles 
we are publishing. Show him “The Congressional 
Calendar,” “The Crops and the Markets” and “Efficient 


60 







Farm Management.” Every farmer you know and can see 
ought to be a steady reader of The Gentleman. Will you 
see that he is? 

Commuters will read The Gentleman eagerly. They 
are the men who work in the city and who, when work is 
over, run for their trains, to build a sweet-pea trestle 
or to weed the nasturtium bed before supper. Most com¬ 
muters are farmers on a small scale. They keep chickens or 
grow tomatoes or own a cow. Chickens, tomatoes and 
cows are their hobbies. Offer them The Gentleman, 
point out some article which bears on their particular 
hobby, and you will make sales and get steady customers. 
So on the afternoon of Gentleman day—which is Post 
day, too—be sure to visit the railroad stations and you will 
sell lots of copies to homeward-bound suburbanites. 

The city man. What!—you say ? What does the city 
man know or care about farming? Well, sir, he knows a 
lot more than you think, and as for caring—well, all of us 
hope to get back to the farm some day. In nine out of ten 
business men in the city there is a restless imp urging 
“back to the country.” So ask your business men ac¬ 
quaintances to buy The Gentleman. Say to each, “Are 
you going back some day?” When he says, “Where?” 
answer, “Back to the country.” Open a copy at “The 
Home Acre.” Make him take a look at it. 

The dealer . In cities and towns you will find lots of deal¬ 
ers, men who make money by buying grain, vegetables and 
other produce from the farmers and selling it to the people 
in the cities at higher prices. Dealers must keep in touch 
with farming conditions. They have to know how the crops 
are. They have to know what the farmer is doing. It 
is part of their business. They need The Gentleman. 

61 





The grocer and the butcher are live prospects. They 
draw their living from the farms, and their profits depend 
on the crops. If apples are scarce the grocer will have to 
pay the dealer more for his supply. If hog cholera is 
prevalent the butcher will have to pay more for his hams. 
Both will accept your offer to supply The Gentleman if 
you put it up to them right. 

The banker in your town will buy—and become a 
“steady.” Why? Because his business and the farmers* 
business are closely associated. The wealth of the nation 
depends on the product of the farm. The wealth of your 
State and of your county depend on the product of your 
farms, and your banker knows this. Show him “The 
Congressional Calendar” and the banker will buy The 
Gentleman. 

Manufacturers who make things for the farm, or who 
sell things to the farmer, will buy The Gentleman. The 
manager of the general store in the country town, the 
managers and employees of concerns that make plows, oil¬ 
cans, cream-separators, hardware, harness, etc.; dealers in 
seeds and bulbs, traveling salesmen—all these will buy 
The Gentleman if you will explain how it will help them. 

Women buy The Gentleman. There is some article in 
each issue to appeal to them—no matter what they like. 
Only the other day we received a letter from one of our 
New York City boys in which he wrote that he had tried 
to sell a copy of The Gentleman to a lady who had lived 
in the city so long she hardly knew what the country looked 
like. She said she had no farm, she had no country home, 
she would have no use for The Gentleman whatever, 
unless, to be sure, it contained some article about horses; 
she just loved horses. The boy whipped out a copy of the 


62 








current issue and opened it at “The Need of Army Re- 
Mounts” and at “The Saddle Horse.” The lady bought 
the copy. 

Don’t think for a moment that women who live in the 
city won’t buy The Gentleman. In almost every issue 
you will find articles that will appeal to them, no matter in 
what they are interested. 

And if the city woman will buy Tiie Gentleman, think 
what a splendid chance you have to sell to the women 
who live outside the cities — the wives, the sisters, the 
daughters of the commuters and the small-town business 
men. Almost all of them grow flowers. They want to 
make their homes prettier. They want to know what 
plants are best for the north side of the house, the east side 
and the south side. They want to know all kinds of garden 
news—all of which are discussed in “The Home Acre.” 
Many of them grow vegetables for the table; many of 
them keep chickens and bees. Be sure you play “The 
Home Acre” strong to the women who live in the suburbs. 

The suburbanite is interested in The Gentleman; 
the farmers’ wives can’t wait for it. Very often the farmer’s 
wife is the “business man” of the farm. She is keenly 
interested in all that interests farmers and she will also 
be interested in the articles that refer to the household 
and the domestic side of farming. Show her the articles on 
“Efficient Farm Management,” “TheCongressional Calen¬ 
dar,” “The Home Acre” and “The Country Gentlewoman.” 

Good Ways to Sell THE GENTLEMAN 

You can boost your sales of The Gentleman by using 
the very plans we have suggested on pages 25 and 47. Read 


63 




them over. See for yourself how you can get Gentleman 
customers through the Exchange Plan, the Society Plan, 
the Endless-Chain Plan and the others. In fact, you can 
generally work these plans for all three publications at 
once—thus finding in each person not one possible customer, 
but three. 

Then, too, there are special plans for The Gentleman 
alone. 

Grange and Institute Work 

If you live in a town in the farming district you will 
have a splendid chance to sell at farmers’ meetings. 
Farmers are like other people. Get them together and 
interest one and you’ll have the interest of the others, too. 

Sell a copy to one and more than likely you will sell 
a copy to every man present. 

From your father, friend or neighbor find who is 
secretary of the Pomona or local branch of the State 
Grange, or of any other local agricultural organizations, 
Farmers’ Institutes, Farmers’ Clubs, Farmers’ Unions, 
etc. Call on him if he lives in your town. Write him if he 
lives elsewhere. Find out when the next meeting is to be 
held. Ask him how many will be present. Learn what 
topics will be discussed. 

Then order enough copies and study the Forecast for 
that issue. Decide what articles bear on the subject that 
is to be discussed. Present yourself at the door at the right 
hour and announce your business. Tell the farmers about 
The Gentleman, talk about its useful articles and show 
them one or more you have picked out. 

Instead of selling outside, ask the secretary for per¬ 
mission to sell your copies from a small table on the floor 
of the meeting-room. Then you can show placards adver- 










1.1 t'f 

tising the special articles and sell copies while the meeting 
is in session, as well as while the farmers are entering and 
leaving the building. 

When Farmers Come to Town 

From your grocer or hardware man find out what day 
or days the farmers come to town to sell their produce and 
to buy what they need. On those afternoons frequent the 
hotel where they leave their horses or the livery stables 
where they unhitch them and put them in stalls, or the 
ten-cent barns. Here you will see the farmers as they come 
to town and—better yet—you will get a chance to sell to 
them as they’re feeding their horses at noontime or as they 
are getting ready to drive home. They have plenty of 
loose change when they are hitching up to go back to the 
farm. Their goods are sold. They have an evening before 
them—and probably nothing to read. That’s the time to 
point out the good articles in The Gentleman. 

And if you live in a town near the water be sure to keep 
an eye on the piers and docks to which the progressive 
farmers bring their produce in their motor-boats or launches. 
Every year more and more farmers are beginning to carry 
their produce to market by water—that is, those whose 
farms are on navigable streams. 

The “Show-Them” Plan 

Most people are “from Missouri.” They want to be 
“shown.” 

Now, there is just one way of “showing” a prospective 
customer. Induce him to look through a copy and read 
the articles and stories. If you can get him to do that, nine 
times out of ten he’s yours. 



65 








So we’re going to help you “show” some of your 
Gentleman prospects. On the inclosed blank, entitled 
“My Gentleman Prospects,” write the names and 
addresses of at least ten persons who do not read The 
Gentleman, but who would if you could get them to look 
through a copy. Send this list to us. 

When we receive it we will send a copy to each person 
you name. We will send him a card telling him that the 
copy has been sent at your request, and we’ll send you a 
letter telling you that the copies have been forwarded. 

On the very next Thursday go to these prospects. 
Approach each with the question: “How did you like the 
magazine I sent you?” Then ask him if he read that 
article in it. Knowing what he raises, you know in what 
he ought to be interested. The chances are you’ll get a 
regular customer. 











CHAPTER VI 

ETTING your customers is only half the work. 
Holding them is just as important. 

Now, how to hold them. The “how” of holding 
them is summed up in the next few pages. You don’t 
want to work hard to get customers—and then lose them. 
So read these pages carefully. 

Causes for Stops 

1. The boy is untidy or disagreeable. 

2. The boy’s service is irregular. He comes around 
any old time. 

3. The children don’t like the boy. 

4. The boy stays too long. 

5. The boy carries gossip. 

6. The boy is too inquisitive about family business. 

7. The boy is careless about giving change. 

8. The boy insists on coming at mealtime. 

9. The boy will not close the gate or ring the bell. 

10. The boy wants to sell soap, tickets and the like. 

11. The boy won’t wipe his feet on the mat. 

12. The boy stones the dog or the cat. 

13. The boy asks for things to eat. 

67 














14. The boy smokes cigarettes. 

15. The boy swears. 

16. The boy will not keep his copies clean. 

You should study the wishes of your customers, and in 
your goings and comings behave yourself in a manner to 
please them. 

In selling over a large route it is necessary to take care 
of the customers already on your books. Map out your 
route and give your customers reason to expect you at the 
same time each week—and then be there. 

The value of promptness and reliability cannot be more 
strongly pointed out than in a letter received from Mr. 
William Christian, of Fairbury, Nebraska: 

“Some time ago, for my wife, I began buying The 
Journal from one of your local Journal boys. For a while 
he brought the copy promptly, but after a time he tired of 
the work, became careless and even failed at times to 
deliver the copy at all. Mrs. Christian enjoyed the maga¬ 
zine when she could get it, but her interest in it began to 
wane on account of the irregular deliveries by the boy and 
because of his abrupt and noisy conduct. 

“In the beginning we agreed to take it from him for six 
months, but long before the time was up we were obliged 
to discontinue because of the boy’s boisterous misconduct 
and poor service. 

“Shortly before we stopped taking from this boy 
another Curtis boy called on us and modestly inquired 
whether we were taking The Journal. I said that we 
were. He replied,‘All right, thank you,’ and immediately 
bowed himself out. 

“I noticed that the latter boy passed our place fre¬ 
quently after that. He would walk by very slowly, holding 









The Journal up in such a position that we could not help 
seeing it. After waiting a few weeks he came again to see 
us. He did not intrude, but seeing that I was busy, quickly 
stepped back out of the way and waited until I was at 
leisure. Then he stepped up to me and in a businesslike 
way asked if we were still receiving The Journal. I told 
him of the trouble I had experienced in obtaining the copies 
and stated that we did not care to begin again on that 
account. He said: ‘You’ll buy from me if I bring it 
regularly , won’t you ? ’ 

“As I looked into his bright face and remembered his 
persistent, yet gentlemanly efforts, I agreed to take it. 

“ He thanked me and hurried on. Now we are receiving 
faithful service from a polite and intelligent boy. We 
intend to buy The Journal from this boy as long as we 
have the price and he is your agent.” 

A Customer Saved is One Gained 

When a customer stops you suffer a direct loss, for his 
nickels then go to some other use, and the time and effort 
you spent in getting him have not received their full 
reward. 

If you think you can make good the loss of an old 
customer by getting a new one you are mistaken. When 
you get the new one you have had to put forth twice the 
time and twice the effort, and then stand just where you 
did before. 

A large number of our readers who stop wouldn’t have 
stopped if their boy agents had taken a little more interest 
in each and served him more promptly, touched his tender 
spots more lightly, respected his hobbies more thoroughly. 

The number of stops is lowest among those boys who 
keep close watch on their customers. The customer who 


69 




stopped because the boy was not careful in serving her 
promptly, because he often left the door open and because 
he soiled the carpet with muddy feet, is angry at him , not 
dissatisfied with the magazine. 

If that boy is you, call on her again and promise that 
you will do better if given another chance. 

It’s up to you to hold every customer by delivering 
promptly, by behaving politely and by paying close 
attention to each customer’s wishes. 

Six Things to Remember 

1. All Curtis agents are required to pay for their copies 
in advance. Most of our boys do so promptly. Only 
careless boys need to be reminded. Mail your remittances 
promptly on your regular mailing day. (See our pam¬ 
phlet, “How to Keep in Touch With The Company,” which 
will be sent on request). This is very important, for you 
know that: 

2. You must deliver promptly to your customers if 
you are to hold their trade. Call at the post-office for 
your copies as soon as they arrive and deliver early on 
Thursday to your regular customers. Solicit new business 
afterward. 

3. Read the Forecasts or have your mother tell you 
about the stories, articles and departments in the maga¬ 
zines. Look closely at the pictures. To sell lots of copies 
you must be able to tell people what is in the magazines. 
Learn what you are selling, so that you can talk to your 
prospects and interest them. 

4. To “sell out” is highly desirable. The Curtis boy 
who gets the habit of selling out clean makes more money. 
Sticking to it until every copy is sold is the way to success. 



70 





5. Each week you should solicit orders from at least 
ten or twenty persons who are not now buying from you. 
Thousands of boys do this regularly. It must pay well or 
they wouldn’t keep it up. 

6. If you go away for a week or so in the summer, or 
are taken sick, arrange for one of your friends to supply 
your “steadies.” Then they will know that whether you 
are sick or well, at home or away, you will see that their 
copies are delivered, and they will count on you. 



Order Early 

Some of our boys do not realize how important it is for 
them to send their money for copies promptly. You have 
a schedule. You know just when your money should be 
mailed to us. 


71 

































If you don’t send your money promptly your copies 
will reach you late or not at all. We cannot send copies to 
any agent who doesn’t send us enough money to pay for 
them. Our strict adherence to this rule enables us to offer 
you all the splendid Prizes in the Rebate Book. 

Now, if your copies do not reach you on Thursday, you 
cannot supply your customers promptly—which is what 
they want. Read the story on page 68. If they don’t get 
their copies from you on Thursday they’ll buy them 
elsewhere, or else lose their interest altogether. In either 
case it is a dead loss to you. 

Remit promptly. Then your copies will arrive 
promptly. Your customers will get them promptly and 
you will retain their good will. 

Remit promptly. It is just as easy as remitting a day 
or two days late. 

Stealing 

What boy hasn’t seen piles of coats fringing the side¬ 
lines of the football grounds after school in the fall ? Foot¬ 
ball is hot work, even in November. 

If you should find a boy stealthily rifling the pockets of 
those stripped-off coats what would you call him? If 
he took another’s money, knife or whatnot, you’d call it 
stealing, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would call him a thief. 

Working for our Prizes is just as interesting, and usually 
just as hot work, as football. And when the “square” 
Curtis boys peel off their coats and work for their bicycles, 
or whatever it is they want, they don’t have to guard the 
pile against thieves. 

On delivering to your regular customers next Thursday 
what would you think if you should find that another 


72 











Curtis boy had supplied them"on Wednesday? Wouldn’t 
your profits and Vouchers be stolen just as meanly as if 
that boy had gone through your pockets ? Wouldn’t he 
be a thief ? Yes, selling on Wednesday is not only unfair— 
but downright stealing from “square” boys. 

Any boy who, for any reason, sells on Wednesday is 
presumed to do so to take an unfair advantage of those 
boys that play fair. No sneakthief who rifles the peeled- 
off coats along the side-lines is meaner than the Curtis boy 
who, with soiled fingers, reaches stealthily after the unclean 
profits of Wednesday sales. 

If it is stealing for a boy to sell on Wednesday what 
should be said of the man —of the newsdealer, druggist, 
stationer, train agent—who does it? 

If you saw a boy stealing another’s money you would 
go privately to him and try to persuade him to do right. 
Yes, you would give him a chance before making complaint 
to the authorities. So, if you see a boy selling on Wednes¬ 
day you should first try to induce him to stop it. 

Suppose the Wednesday boy doesn’t listen to you. 
What is your duty then? Ought you not to report him to 
us? If you caught a thief robbing a bank you’d report 
him to the police, wouldn’t you? 

Yes, you should report to us every Wednesday boy or 
dealer who won’t listen to you, and who persists in selling 
before Thursday. You should report every agent who sells 
The Journal before the twentieth of the preceding month. 
If in silence you permit another boy to sell The Post or 
The Gentleman on Wednesday, or The Journal on 
the nineteenth, without reporting him to us you will be 
presumed to be guilty as well as he, and afraid to have the 
light turned on. 


73 






Maybe 

Wednesday- or-Never 
was the name oP 
Munchausen’s horse 


The agents who are caught selling before the sale date 
resort to various excuses. Once in a while an offender says: 

“If I don’t meet the trains on Wednesday night I miss 
a lot of sales that I can’t make Thursday.” 

When a boy writes in this way he puts profit above 
principle. Honest Curtis boys willingly forfeit sales which 
they can’t make with clean hands. You are not helping 
our circulation by selling Wednesday nights at the depot. 
Those readers will buy elsewhere on Thursday—their 
patronage won’t be lost to us, even if you don’t sell to 
them. The “ Wednesday-or-never” excuse won’t hold 
water. It is no excuse at all. 

A few guilty Wednesday boys try to shift the blame 
upon their sub-agents. One of these dodgers recently said: 
“I don’t sell on Wednesdays. One of my sub-agents did 
it. He lives a whole mile away, and I have to let him 
have his copies Wednesday, so that he can serve his cus¬ 
tomers before school Thursday.” 

You can’t hide behind your sub-agents in this way. If 
you let a sub-agent take his copies on Wednesday you're 
guilty if that sub-agent sells them before Thursday—you’re 
responsible for any premature sales in your town. 

A few shifty boys have tried to dodge the Thursday 
rule by pretending to believe that they are only forbidden 
to sell to their regular customers. One of them put it this 
way: 

“I haven’t delivered to my regular customers on 
Wednesday. I only sold to chance buyers on the street 
Wednesday night.” 

You can’t escape the Wednesday penalties by making 
up excuses. Regardless of what reasons you have, the 
case will be judged according to this question: “Did you 
or did you not sell on Wednesday ? ” Any honest boy will 
cheerfully hold his copies until Thursday. 


74 









One Boy’s Mistake 

The streets about Broad Street Station are the busiest 
in Philadelphia. There are more people passing along the 
streets day and night than in any other part of the city, 
and the Curtis boy who works around that neighborhood 
must be “all there.” He must have a quick eye to see 
his customers—or he will miss sales. It is no place for a 
“dopey kid.” That kind of a boy won’t make enough 
money to buy shoe-leather. 

We wish you could have seen what happened there one 
Thursday afternoon not long ago. 

Hundreds of people were hurrying along on their way 
home from work to catch trains and trolleys, and Curtis 
boys and newsboys were selling magazines and papers right 
and left. Half a dozen young men came along. It just 
happened at the very moment when one of them men¬ 
tioned that he wanted a copy of The Post that they were 
at a point where a certain Curtis boy usually stands. 

“ Where is that kid ? ” inquired the young man. “ Don’t 
see him,” answered one of the other fellows. 

The young man looked no further, but kept on walking. 
At the next corner a wide-awake newsboy dashed up to 
them—he almost jumped at them. 

“Here you are, sir! Get The Saturday Evening 
Post ! Just out! ” 

That boy sold five copies to those young men, and 
before they had gotten their change in their pockets he was 
selling to other customers. That’s the way a live boy does 
business. 

But where was the other boy—the one the young man 
looked for and could not find? Of course, he was right 
there; at least, he was “almost there.” He had just 



75 















stepped into a doorway out of the wind to light a cigarette— 
that’s all. But while he was getting the light he lost five 
sales. 

He thought he could mix cigarettes with the Curtis work 
and not lose anything, but he made a mistake. Every time 
a Curtis boy goes into a doorway to light a cigarette he 
loses something. Sometimes he loses sales , sometimes he 
loses the good will of his customers. 








CHAPTER VII 

N OW you know the Curtis game—all of it you can 
learn from a book. Your next aim is to become an 
expert salesman. It may fit you to hold a big job 
later. Your first step in becoming an expert salesman is to 

Convince Yourself First 

Your success in winning over a prospect depends 
directly upon your own faith in your magazines. If there 
is one sure thing in all this world it is this: No salesman 
can make good if he does not feel and know that his goods 
are worth the money. 

And nothing is more true than this: No salesman, 
other things being equal, who is fired with enthusiasm by 
his confidence in the worth of his wares, ever failed to 
make a success of his work. 

Therefore, you should convince yourself first of all that 
the readers get more for their money buying our magazines 
than when they spend their money in any other way. 
Count up all the strong features in the current issues — 
consider how good the magazines are week after week and 
month after month—think how many million persons read 
our magazines in a month’s time—see for yourself what 


77 












supreme reasons there are why every non-reader in your 
town should buy each issue from you. Believe sincerely 
and earnestly in your Company, and your prospect will 
feel your confidence. Prospects give orders they never 
meant to give, when approached by a Curtis boy in the 
white heat of a loyal, earnest belief in his magazines. 

How can you bring yourself at will into this frame of 
mind? The former Editor of “Salesmanship” (now “Ad¬ 
vertising and Selling”), Mr. W. C. Holman, answers the 
question in this way: 

“ One of the best salesmen I ever knew got up what he 
called his catechism. He used to put himself through it 
whenever he had the chance. The questions he would 
repeat in a quiet tone, but the answers he would pronounce 
with all the earnestness of which he was capable.” 

This catechism, which every Curtis boy should read, 
ran somewhat as follows: 

Am I working for a good Company? YES. 

Is my profit a liberal one ? YES. 

Is my Company known as one of the best in the 
country ? YES. 

Have we made millions of sales like the sales I am going 
to make today? YES. 

Have we millions of satisfied readers ? YES. 

Am I selling the best magazines made anywhere in the 
world? YES. 

Is the price I am asking a fair one? YES. 

In fact, is it far below the value of the magazines ? YES. 

Do the persons I am going to call on need my maga¬ 
zines ? YES. 

Do they all realize that now? NO. 


78 


























Will they all want to buy my magazines when they first 
see me? NO. 

Is that the very reason I am going to call on them— 
because as yet they don’t want my magazines and haven’t 
bought them ? YES. 

Am I justified in asking a prospect’s time and attention 
to point out the merits of my magazines ? BY ALL THE 
POWERS, YES! 

Am I going to get into the office or home of every man 
whom I want to serve, if there is any possible way to do it ? 
YES. 

Am I going to sell to every man or woman I call on 
today? YOU BET I AM! 

What Is Salesmanship? 

Salesmanship is simply the power to persuade some one 
to your opinion—to make him think as you do. Every time 
you land a new customer you persuade him to think as you 
do—that he needs and wants the magazine. When you 
know howto persuade other people to your opinion,you are 
a successful salesman. 

When should you begin? When? Right now. Listen: 

There are five separate steps which make up a sale: 

The Pre-Approach 

The pre-approach includes any steps you may take to 
learn as much as you can about your prospect before you 
call upon him. Often you will find it important to make 
inquiries about a man before you see him. Size him up by 
finding out his hobbies and peculiarities, from people who 
know him. When you have found out what kind of a man 



79 








you have to deal with you can then tell better what to say 
to him. Study your man before you tackle him. 

The Introduction 

The introduction includes all the steps you take to get 
the attention of your prospect. Generally you can get the 
attention of a man or woman by explaining in a courteous 
way that you want to sell the magazine. 

In special cases, however, as when the prospect is busy 
or occupied with something else, you may not immediately 
get his undivided attention. As a general rule insist upon 
his undivided attention before you enter upon. 

The Demonstration 

The demonstration includes all the steps you take to 
arouse the interest of your prospect. To arouse interest 
you must have some strong talking-point. If you should 
try the Society Plan, explained on page 30, your talking- 
point would be the fact that a large part of your profits will 
go to help a good cause in which your prospective customer 
is interested. At another time your talking-point may be 
an unusual article in the particular issue you are then 
selling. Or you may mention some big prize for which you 
are working. Get down to brass tacks with what you 
think is the strongest talking-point you have. See the 
selling-plans outlined on pages 25 to 47. 

Creating Desire 

This step includes everything you may say to your 
prospect to create in him a desire for the magazine. If your 
talking-point is the Society Plan you should play strong 
the fact that you will contribute to the benevolent fund in 



80 









Just wait 
a minute, sir. 


I want 
to rub 
it in! 


which your prospect is interested. If he is anxious to 
further the plan, this talking-point will create in him a 
desire to buy from you. Or, if he is really interested in 
some special article pointed out to him, that article will 
create in him a desire for the magazine. 


Changing Desire Into Resolve 


After you have aroused your prospect’s desire for the 
magazine, you must then change that desire into a resolve to 
buy. Ordinarily your aim should be to show forcefully how 
much a customer will benefit by reading the magazine, and 
how much he will enjoy the stories and articles in each issue. 

Your success in getting customers in your town will 
depend upon how well you know these five selling-steps. 

Before you approach a prospect, especially if he is a 
hard man to land and hold in line, you should find out from 
his neighbors and friends what is the best time to call and 
what you should make your strongest selling-point. 

Let us take a typical case. Suppose there is a promi¬ 
nent lawyer named Smith living on your street, who does 
not read The Post. You know that if you persuade him 
to buy it from you lots of other people will buy, too—just 
because he does. You make up your mind to get him for 
a customer. 

In your pre-approach you ask your father and your 
neighbors about him. You learn that before breakfast he 
is a stern, abrupt man, but after dinner in the evening he is 
often in a jovial frame of mind. You learn that he is 
a college graduate—that he went to Princeton. So much 
for the pre-approach. 

The next evening, with a card of introduction from Mr. 
Jones, who lives next door, you ring the door-bell and ask 


81 




for Mr. Smith. You are shown into the library; the maid 
takes your card to Mr. Smith. A few minutes later Mr. 
Smith enters, somewhat impatiently. He is a little annoyed 
at being disturbed, and you might be misled into thinking 
him a bear had your pre-approach not “put you Jerry.” 

With your card of introduction , however, he cannot be 
very abrupt. “ What can I do for you ? ” 

You have finished the introduction step. Now for the 
demonstration . 

“Mr. Smith, I want to sell you a copy of The Saturday 
Evening Post. You will be interested in it, I think. Did 
you know President Hibben when you were in college?” 

Mr. Smith looks at you with surprise. How did you 
know he went to Princeton? What do you know about 
President Hibben? 

“Did I know him? Yes, I knew him well. What about 
him?” 

“It’s he on this week’s ‘Who’s Who and Why’ page.” 

The demonstration is over. Now to create a desire 
for the magazine on Mr. Smith’s part, you open a copy and 
hand it to him. No sooner does he see President Hibben’s 
picture than his eyes sparkle and he grabs the copy. 

“I knew you were a Princeton man, Mr. Smith, so 
I thought you would like to read this article.” 

That you have already created a desire for the maga¬ 
zine is shown by the way in which he is greedily reading the 
first few paragraphs. Now to change that desire into a 
resolve to buy. This is perhaps the easiest step of all, for 
everybody will buy what they want—when they can afford 
it, and anybody can afford a nickel. So you say: “I must 
be going, Mr. Smith, but I shall be glad to leave that copy 
with you for five cents.” 



82 


Don’t 

mechanically 






By this time you couldn’t pry Mr. Smith away from 
his copy with a crowbar. In two minutes you are on your 
way home with one more nickel and one less Post. 

You have taken Mr. Smith through the five stages of 
making a sale. Your pre-approach told you when to see 
him and what arguments to use. Your card of introduc¬ 
tion gained you admittance. Your demonstration of the 
Hibben article created a desire on his part to own the copy, 
and your final hint that you would have to take it with you 
if he didn’t give you a nickel caused him to make up his 
mind to buy the copy. This is a scientific sale . 

One of our boys had for a long time called upon a 
certain prospect without selling him copies. The boy had 
been able to get the prospect’s attention and interest, but, 
somehow, he could not influence him to buy. 

This prospect had a crippled son, who was confined 
within-doors. One day our agent changed his selling-talk 
to show the prospect how much enjoyment his crippled son 
would get from reading The Post. The prospect shelled 
out instantly and became a regular customer. Our boy 
had found the selling-argument that would make the sale. 

Naturally, you will use different tactics to carry 
different people through the five stages. The selling-talk 
which you would use successfully in landing an order from 
a lawyer would probably not go very far toward arousing 
the interest and desire of his stenographer. The talking- 
points you would use in securing an order from a stenog¬ 
rapher world be wasted on a grocer. Again: What would 
interest a university professor might seem pretty dry to a 
blacksmith. In order to convert the large majority of your 
prospects into regular customers you must know how to 
approach effectively different types and classes of people. 
Read the story about “The Versatile Boy,” on page 9. 


83 




When approaching a politician you should show him 
something in The Post that will be of vital interest to 
him—The Senator’s Secretary is a good talking-point. 
Unless you can make the clerk in the dry-goods store 
believe that The Journal is full of articles which she 
wishes to read you will fail to secure her order. It is the 
same way with ministers, druggists, merchants, mechanics 
and other people. Try to size up each issue quickly and to 
decide what classes of people will be most interested in it. 
Then you will know what articles to talk about and what 
prospects to interview. 

For instance, let us suppose that the current issue 
contains a political article of great interest. That will be 
the time to get orders from city officials and other citizens 
concerned in politics. Or suppose the current issue con¬ 
tains an article which will appeal to students. In this case 
you should make a special effort among the high-school 
girls and boys, among the college students and the pro¬ 
fessors and members of the faculty. 

To show just what we mean, let us refer to articles that 
have already been published—then after you see how the 
game is worked you can look through The Post in order 
to see what it contains and then make up your mind just 
what kind of people to interview and how to interview 
them. Below are a few imaginary approaches. Be sure 
to notice how the articles mentioned are of special interest 
to each particular prospect. 

How to Sell THE POST to a Lawyer 

“ Good-afternoon, Mr. Jenkins. Has any one told you 
that in this issue of The Post there is a splendid article 
about ‘A Citizen In Court’? I have secured an order from 



84 











almost every lawyer in town on the strength of this article. 
I feel sure that you, too, will want to read it.” 

“I should like to see that article. Kindly give me 
a copy.” (The sale is now probably made, but you shouldn’t 
stop here.) 

“ There is a regular department in The Saturday 
Evening Post, entitled ‘Who’s Who and Why.’ Every 
week under this heading we publish ‘ Serious and Frivolous 
Facts About the Great and the Near-Great.’ By reading 
these articles you almost feel that you are personally 
acquainted with the big men of the country. If you will 
just sign this order I will deliver a copy to you each week 
for the next thirteen weeks. By that time you will come to 
like The Post and to expect it each Thursday.” (Mr. 
Jenkins signs the order.) See how his interest was changed 
into desire by giving a brief outline of some of the articles 
other than “A Citizen In Court.” 

How to Sell THE POST to a Business Man 

“Mr. Brown, every one is interested in the Panama 
Canal and the effect it is going to have on the business in 
the cities on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. They say 
that practically every business in the country will feel the 
effect in one way or another. The majority of the business 
men I have approached today have been eager to read in 
this copy of The Post an article entitled ‘How Boston 
Intends to Profit From Panama,’ and I am sure you will 
want to read the article, too. 

“Then, too, there begins in this issue a strong article 
about ‘The Newspaper Game.’ You will probably want 
to read this each week. There is an interesting article on 
‘The High School for a Boy,’ and the ‘Who’s Who and 


85 



Why’ page is devoted to a very funny sketch of Mr. 
Herrick, our new Ambassador to France. Please sign 
here.” (Now you have clinched him for thirteen weeks.) 

How to Sell The Post to a Doctor 

“You will want to read this copy of The Post, Doctor 
Greene. The well-known physician, Dr. Woods Hutchin¬ 
son, has written an article on ‘How We Grow Deaf.’ He 
often writes for The Post and his articles are read eagerly 
by physicians everywhere. I sell to many physicians in 
this town. 

“Aside from these special articles, there is something 
in each issue you will want to read. The ‘ Who’s Who and 
Why’ page is a regular department. You will enjoy it, as 
well as ‘The Senator’s Secretary.’ Why not take a copy 
each week—and when you are through with it lay it on 
the table in your waiting-room ? Your patients will be glad 
to look it over while waiting for their turns. They will 
forget about the time and will not become impatient if you 
are delayed and cannot attend to their cases promptly.” 

Howto Sell THE POST to a Baseball Fan 

All the year ’round the baseball fans—they make up most 
of the male population of the country—are talking about who 
won the pennant and who is going to, and why this hap¬ 
pened or why that happened. There is no end to it. And 
every fan is a buyer. You can offer him what he wants. 

“Mr. Flynn, in this copy of The Post, Connie Mack, 
the great manager of the Athletics, tells how he has 
developed such a wonderful team. He says it’s all a ques¬ 
tion of getting the right material to start with. You will 









want to read ‘The Stuff That Stars Are Made Of,’ be¬ 
cause it will give you some real dope on inside baseball, 
and you’ll know it’s right, because Connie Mack wrote it.” 

How to Sell The POSTto a Young Woman 

“Have you bought your Post yet, Madam?” (That 
word “ Madam” will give you a flying start toward the sale.) 
“There is a splendid story in this issue about Jeff Brans- 
ford—you remember he was the hero of ‘ Good Men and 
True’—how he was thrown from his horse, fell in love and 
had to flee from justice. But he won out—because Elinor 
stuck by him. It is called ‘ The Little Eohippus.’ You will 
want to read it because everybody will be talking about it 
before Saturday.” 

Remember that no one can appreciate a rattling-good 
story of a love adventure more than the average young 
lady, and if you play on her imagination by suggesting the 
plot it will make a sale every time. 

Howto SellTHEPOSTto a RailroadMan 

Mr. R. L. Farrior is connected with the Louisville & 
Nashville Railroad. Having worked all night, he was hurry¬ 
ing home early on the morning of January sixth, when he 
was accosted by a Curtis boy, who tried to sell him a copy. 
When Mr. Farrior declined to buy, the boy caught step 
with his prospect. 

Boy: “You look as if you had been traveling all night. 
What kind of work do you do?” 

Mr. Farrior: “I am a railroad man.” 

Quick as a flash the boy drew a Post from his bag and 
opened to a certain page. 


87 









Maybe you’d 
like one? 


T-r-r 



Boy: “This article, ‘How the Railroads are Planning 
to Fight Legislation/ ought to interest you.” 

That Montgomery boy knows his business. He would 
make good anywhere, for he knows what he has to sell and 
he finds out what each prospect is interested in. 


How to Sell THEj OURNALto a Housewife 


If your pre-approach has told you what she is inter¬ 
ested in, play on that—but mention, too, the other strong 
points of The Journal. 

“Good-morning, Mrs. Gordon. I am sorry to disturb 
you on sewing day, but I know you will be interested in an 
article on ‘Making the Home Sewing Easy’, in this copy of 
The Ladies’ Home Journal. It suggests a lot of short 
cuts that many ladies don’t think of.” (Now you have her 
attention.) “And in addition you’ll like ‘The Housewife 
Who is Successful’ and ‘How One Couple Spent Their 
Income.’ In fact, The J ournal has articles just as good as 
these in every issue, and if you like this one I’ll be glad to 
deliver to you on the twentieth of each month.” 

Here you have made a good stroke, because you have 
assumed that she is going to buy the issue. She can hardly 
refuse to buy it. To refuse she must first go to the trouble 
of convincing you that she is not going to buy. 


Howto Sell The JOURNAL to Shoppers 


Every morning you will see crowds of shoppers, with 
pocketbooks full of small change, going in and out of the 
stores of the business districts. They are there to buy 
things—and they’ll buy from you if you put it up to 
them right. 


88 



Meow! 




“Madam, this copy of The Journal contains some 
articles you will want to read when you get home. Some of 
them are about the house—how you can make it more 
homelike and attractive at little expense. Some of them 
are about clothes, and how you can make them cheaply. 
If you are going to buy anything this copy of The Journal 
will help you a lot. If you don’t want to carry it I’ll deliver 
it to your home for fifteen cents.” 

How to Sell THE JOURNAL to a Clerk 

In the big stores in your town you will see hundreds of 
girls and women with little money who are working to 
make both ends meet. Above all, they are interested in 
dressing well and inexpensively. Play this argument 
strong—but don’t forget the other good points of The 
Journal. Probably you can’t canvass them during work¬ 
ing hours, but you can make a “killing” at closing time. 
Talk thus: 

“ Would you believe that these dresses cost only $1.00 ? ” 
Open the magazine to the colored plate. “ They look more 
like $10.00, don’t they? The magazine costs fifteen cents, 
the dress $1.00—a saving of almost $9.00 right away. 
When you pay fifteen cents you get lots of good stories and 
articles, too. Here’s ‘The Armchair at the Inn’ and ‘How 
Can I Make Money?’ You will enjoy reading them tonight.” 

How to Sell THE JOURNAL to a 
Matinee Girl 

Entering and leaving the theaters you will find hun¬ 
dreds of ladies with one idea—for the time, at least—the 
play. The atmosphere of the theater is what they live 







in. In anything pertaining to the theater and theatrical 
people they take a keen interest. 

“ Do you know ‘ Why Actresses’ Clothes are Effective ’ ? ” 
This question will serve as your introduction. “ Well, this 
issue of The Ladies’ Home Journal tells why—and tells 
it in colored pictures, too. The price is only fifteen cents. 
Then, too, this copy tells about ‘My Days With Maude 
Adams in the Desert’ and ‘Playing Tennis With Sarah 
Bernhardt.’ You will enjoy reading it between the acts 
and when you go home.” 

And the same kind of salesmanship will sell copies for 
you if, when the audience has dispersed, you “beat it” 
around to the stage door and accost the theatrical people 
as they come out. 

How to Sell THE GENTLEMAN 
to a Farmer 

As we have pointed out, you’ve got to learn what your 
prospect is interested in if you are going to land him as a 
customer. Any one with whom the farmer does business in 
town can tell you what he grows. Or, if you call on him at 
the farm you can see for yourself. 

There is no use playing up a story on peaches to a farmer 
who raises livestock, or an article on fodder for Jersey cows 
to a farmer whose acres are given over to orchards. 

To the peach-raising farmer you should talk as follows: 
“Did frosts hurt your orchards this spring, Mr. Allen? 
I wish I had had this copy of The Country Gentleman 
to offer you earlier. It tells how fruit growers are protect¬ 
ing their trees against frost. You know farmers don’t like 
to spend days of work and dollars of money fertilizing their 


90 





orchards and pruning and spraying their trees, and then 
have all the profits wiped out by one night of frost. Read 
this article, ‘The Control of Frost in the Orchard.’ When 
you finish it look through ‘The Congressional Calendar.’ 
It tells what they are doing down at Washington to 
safeguard the interests of the farmer.” 

If the farmer is in the stock-raising business, tackle him 
from this angle: 

“Mr. Greene, you will be interested in an article 
entitled ‘The Care of Calves,’ in this issue of The Country 
Gentleman. Mr. Mills writes that the most inexpensive 
way to get good dairy cows is to raise them yourself, and 
he says that it isn’t difficult at all if you follow a few 
general rules.” 

Mr. Greene’s curiosity to read this article will doubtless 
make a customer of him. 

Just so, you can make a customer of every farmer if you 
do this: Find out his particular branch of farming and 
point out to him some article about it. 

How to Sell THE GENTLEMAN 
to a Farmer’s Wife 

“Good-afternoon, Mrs. Morse. Have you seen this 
week’s issue of The Country Gentleman? It has three 
articles I am sure you will want to read. One is called 
‘Cooking for Hired Men,’ another ‘Country Cookery,* 
and in this issue the section called ‘The Country Gentle¬ 
woman’ tells about the wonderful opportunities open 
to farming women and describes ‘The Canning Club’ 
started by the girls down Carolina way. Many of them 
clear $100.00 with only a tenth of an acre. Yes, ‘The 


91 




Country Gentlewoman’ is a regular department. It ap¬ 
pears in each issue. If you wish I’ll deliver the weekly to 
you regularly for five cents a copy.” 

Bear this in mind: The farmers’ wives often have as 
much interest in the management of the farm as their 
husbands and will take an equally great interest in the 
articles on “Efficient Farm Management.” 

How to Sell The gentleman 
to a Commuter 

“Here you are, sir.” The gentleman is probably going 
for a train; you have got to talk fast and you don’t know 
his name. “Here’s an article on ‘The Home Acre’ that 
tells how to grow vegetables for the table. Just a small 
patch of land is enough. You like fresh vegetables. You 
can have them if you read this issue; only five cents. 
Thank you.” 

Remember, too, that the suburbanite is often a flower 
enthusiast, and that mentioning any article on flowers and 
flower-growing will usually make a sale. 

How to Sell THE GENTLEMAN 
to a Banker 

“Mr. Henderson, this issue of The Country Gentle¬ 
man contains an article on ‘The Small Bank and the 
Farmer.’ It tells how closely the banking business is allied 
with agriculture, and how the bank’s deposits vary accord¬ 
ing to the crops. Then, too, this issue gives the latest 
summary of the crops. You will want to read it because 
of its immediate bearing on banking conditions. 


92 








How to Sell The Gentleman 
to a Butcher 

“Do you think that the supply of meat is going to fall 
short of the demand, Mr. White ?” Your butcher, a little 
surprised at the question, will give you his full attention. 
“There’s an article in this issue of The Country Gentle¬ 
man, called ‘The Selling and Buying of Cattle;’ it tells all 
about the increasing demand for meat, about the different 
kinds of cattle and about the problems of marketing them. 
You’ll find it mighty interesting.” 

How to Sell THE GENTLEMAN 
to a Grocer 

“Do you find that people like oleomargarine as well as 
butter?” (Oleomargarine, you know, is a would-be butter, 
made from fat.) “Do you think that the oleo law now 
under discussion will work you a hardship, or would it 
protect you from your dishonest competitors? ‘The 
Congressional Calendar’ this week tells all about the law 
and how dealers swindle both the Government and the 
consumer. You will find this article interesting, Mr. 
Brown—and you’ll ^ like the others, too. This copy costs 
five cents. If you like it, I’ll deliver you a copy each 
week.” 

Remember that the grocer in small towns (and the 
butcher, as well,) often buys his produce directly from the 
farmer. In the larger cities he obtains his supplies from 
the commission merchant who buys his produce from the 
farmer. 


93 









HOW to Sell THE GENTLEMAN to 
the Commision Merchant 

There are lots of commission merchants in every good- 
sized city, and they all will buy The Gentleman if it’s put 
up to them right. The Gentleman contains information 
they've got to have. It’s the textbook of their business. 
Any article on crop conditions or on farming methods or 
on market legislation or on the demand for produce—any 
such article will make a sale for you, especially if it tells 
about your section of the country, its products and its 
farming methods. 

Scientific Selling or Peddling—Which? 

Do you know what science means? Take a game of 
marbles, for example. You train your eye and your hand 
so you can “plump” a marble from “long taws” every 
time. That’s scientific marble-playing. And athletics: 
A sprinter, determined to win his race, goes into careful 
training for weeks before the meet. He eats special food, 
exercises according to rules and sleeps regularly. In short, 
he reduces athletics to a science. 

So with your Curtis work. You’ve got to go at it 
scientifically. You have got to make it a rule to judge 
what each prospect is interested in. You have got to 
convince him that he needs your magazine. 

Let us explain clearly the difference between ordinary 
peddling and scientific selling. When you call on a prospect 
do you say, “Want to buy The Post ? ” take your turndown 
(for it’s almost sure to come), and let it go at that ? If you 
do, you just peddle The Post. 

Or do you strike up a conversation with a man, sort of 
get acquainted with him, make him interested in you 



>H!All right,sir. 
apologize for 
aving asked you 


94 












personally and point out the leading features in the current 
issue—the ones that will appeal to him? If you do, you 
are selling The Post scientifically. 

If you are in the peddler’s class you know that almost 
everybody you ever asked to buy The Post turned you 
down. Nobody wants to buy anything from a peddler. 
Office buildings, big stores, wholesale houses and apart¬ 
ments have signs at the doors: “PEDDLERS NOT 
ADMITTED.” You never saw a sign read: “SCIEN¬ 
TIFIC SALESMEN ARE NOT ADMITTED IN THIS 
BUILDING.” Peddlers are a nuisance and not wanted 
anywhere—not so with scientific salesmen. 

If you are in the salesman’s class, while, of course, you 
don’t land everybody’s order, you get most of them, even 
where the peddler failed to get a single order. Business men 
are watching you, and later on, after you have finished 
your education, some one will offer you a good position 
because while selling the Curtis publications you will have 
proved yourself to be a real, scientific salesman. 

If you have not been a scientific salesman heretofore 
by all means be one from now on. We don’t mean that 
you are expected to use all the tactics of an old-timer who 
has had twenty years’ experience. Just use “boy science,” 
the kind you know about, the kind you use in your games. 

Your town may be full of boys peddling our magazines, 
but there will be plenty of room for you if you are a sales¬ 
man, for this reason: Peddlers ask lots of people to buy our 
magazines and in that way do a lot of good advertising, 
BUT THEY TAKE VERY FEW ORDERS. 

A scientific salesman may follow around after a peddler 
has apparently offered his wares to every one and GET A 
LOT OF ORDERS. 



95 












It’s easy to be a peddler. That’s why there are lots of 
them. 

Be a salesman—it pays better. Apply science and skill 
to your work—rake in the orders—pile up the profits—win 
the prizes. 

The “Keep-Out” Signs 

A brand-new Curtis boy—who is not yet sure of him¬ 
self—is likely to be awed by the hum and bustle of a busy 
office. The curt sign on the door—intended to prevent 
persons from interrupting the boss—the fact that an army 
of employees are instructed by this rule to keep such 
persons out, convey to him a sense of his own weakness— 
make him feel that he has no good reason for presenting 
himself. 

All you have to do is to ask yourself this question: 
“Am I going to let that sign and these people bluff me 
out?” Your answer will be a great, big “NO!” especially 
when you remember this: The rule to keep out was not 
made for you personally or for the magazines which you are 
selling. It was made to cover the rank and file of can¬ 
vassers who sell goods of doubtful merit. 

If you will think over the catechism on page 78 and say 
to yourself, “ I have something exceptional to offer this old 
bear, this rule to keep out can’t apply in my case because 
my magazines are something he is bound to want , I’ll make 
him see it that way,” and if you size yourself up in this 
way the chances are that others will, too. As long as you 
feel that your magazines will prove interesting to your 
prospect you have a right to feel that the rule barring 
agents from his office is not intended to bar you. Convince 
yourself of this, and the stern negative of the information 
clerk will not disturb you. 

I’ll just take 96 
that in with me 
some one 
ght steal it! 


















You will find you have plenty of courage and resource¬ 
fulness to cope with the slick secretary who gives evasive 
replies when you ask him whether Mr. Prospect is now in 
his office, whether he cannot see you at once, and what 
reason exists for supposing you could possibly tell your 
business to any clerk instead of to him. 

Once you are thus certain of your ground the most 
difficult part of the battle is won. 

You may have to defy interference and walk boldly 
into the great chief’s presence, braving his roar and his 
sense of dignity, but you can see him and get speech with 
him, no matter how hard he makes it for you, provided 
your nerve holds out and you use your brains. 

Read the story on page 5. 























CHAPTER VIII 


OVE the regular P-J boy, who pays for his copies 



and sells them, but who does not agree to sell any 


A Jl certain number, there is a Higher Order of Curtis 
boys who are known as Special Agents. 

The regular P-J boy, however clever he may be in 
getting customers, relies upon his own efforts to serve 
them. He goes it alone. No co-worker gives aid and 
advice. He fights single-handed. This is the usual way of 
beginners and of the younger P-J boys in our selling-game 
during the first months of their service. 

The boy who belongs to our Higher Order of Special 
Agents works along different lines. He alone receives 
copies from the Home Office for sale at retail in his town. 
Being protected in control of his town, it pays him to do 
more intensive work—to sell more copies right there in his 
town. It pays him to engage other boys to get customers 
for him, to deliver for him—to act as his sub-agents. This 
Higher Order of work is particularly suitable for high- 
school boys. 

When a boy finishes high school he can have no better 
recommendation than the fact that he has controlled a 
number of boys working under him. Such work gives 
a boy poise. Its benefits cannot be measured in dollars 
and cents. 


98 









The responsibility attached to managing a team of 
sub-agents is the most desirable thing for a boy to have 
during his high-school days. 

Over five thousand boys have joined our Higher Order 
of salesmen—the Special Agents. Some of them were 
promoted to their new duties by correspondence, more by 
men who are traveling from town to town for us. 

Some time ago we employed a large number of men to 
appoint Special Agents for us in towns throughout the 
country. Several hundred of them, a number in each State, 
have been instructed to call upon our best boys, and in 
each town to appoint one to the Higher Order of Special 
Agents. Provided a Special Agent has not already been 
appointed in your town, one of these traveling salesmen 
will be instructed to visit it and to appoint that Special 
Agent for us. In such a case he will doubtless talk to you— 
you may be the boy he wants. If you are on the jump and 
he thinks you can hold down the job as Special Agent he 
will obtain your parents’ signature to a contract which 
will reserve your town for you, and he will receive from 
your father a small amount of money to bind the bargain. 

As some of our salesmen are new at the work, they may 
not clearly understand every point. We ask you to bear 
in mind, therefore, that no salesman is authorized to offer 
you or your parents any inducements which are not clearly 
stated in the contract. The contract does not give you 
the sole privilege to take annual subscriptions in your 
town; it does not prevent newsdealers from obtaining their 
copies from wholesale news companies if they wish to do so 
rather than from you—although there is no reason why 
a newsdealer should do other than draw his copies from 
our Special Agent. 


99 




It will help every boy in your town to have a Special 
Agent appointed, for the boys whom he employs as sub¬ 
agents will benefit by his constant advice and assistance. 
They will secure their copies from him as they need them, 
without writing to us. 

As soon as our salesman is ready to come to your town 
we will notify you. In the mean time, if you want to be 
promoted to the rank of Special Agent sell all the copies 
you can, pile up your Vouchers—and save your money, so 
that you will have the amount to bind the bargain when 
he calls. 



100 










CHAPTER IX 


How to Manage Your Agency 

N OW you have a business of your own. You are 
General Manager. It is up to you. You must do 
your work in a way that will increase profits and cut 
down waste. 

How is this to be done ? 

First of all, you must keep a record of how many copies 
you receive, how many you sell, whether or not each 
customer has paid you, and what kind of reading matter 
each customer likes. The first three are administrative 
(taking care of business you have already secured), the 
fourth is promotive (hustling for more business). 

A Record of Drawings and Sales 

In a little book which we will send you on request you 
will find pages arranged for keeping this information. 

On its pages you will have a record of the number of 
copies of each magazine you receive, of the number you 
sell, of the money you take in and of your net profits (the 
money you make). 

On the following page you will see how the pages of 
the Record Book are made up. The headings of the 
several columns show just what they are for. 


101 











To show how it works out let us suppose you order 
12 copies of The Post for June twenty-second. You pay 
36 cents for them. You sell 11 copies, receiving 55 cents. 
Your one unsold copy you return for 3 cents credit. Your 
total receipts (55 cents plus 3 cents) are 58 cents. Your net 
profit (58 cents minus 36 cents) is 22 cents. 


Your page will look like this: 


Publi¬ 

cation 

Date of 
Issue 

No. of 
Copies 
Taken 

Paid 

No. of 
Copies 
Sold 

Received 
from Sales 

Credit 

on 

Returns 

Total 
Rec. from 
Sales and 
Returns 

Net 

Profit 

P 

June 22 

12 

.36 

11 

.55 

.03 

00 

.22 











Now, of the July Journal you take ten copies—and sell 
them all. Your page will look like this: 


Publi¬ 

cation 

Date of 
Issue 

No. of 
Copies 
Taken 

Paid 

No. of 
Copies 
Sold 

Received 
from Sales 

Credit 

on 

Returns 

Total 
Rec. from 
Sales and 
Returns 

Net 

Profit 

P 

June 22 

12 

.36 

11 

.55 

.03 

00 

.22 ' 

J 

July 

10 

1.10 

10 

1.50 

— 

1.50 

.40 











102 


























From this you can tell at a glance how many copies of 
each issue you have taken and sold, what your profits are, 
and whether your business is increasing or going down hill. 

As General Manager you’ve got to watch this like a 
hawk. 

A Record of Deliveries to Customers 

The other pages of the Record Book are for your rec¬ 
ord of the copies delivered to your customers, for your 
record of their likes and dislikes, for your cards of admission. 
See the next two pages. 

There is a page for each customer. The up-and-down 
columns represent the issues—you enter the date at the 
top. In the squares below you enter the copies you deliver 
above the diagonal line; you enter below the diagonal line 
the amount the customer pays when he pays it. 

If you deliver a copy of The Post to a customer who 
has not the nickel with him mark “ 1 ” above the diagonal 
line in the proper square; when he pays you write “5” 
below the diagonal line. If a customer pays you a quarter 
for five weeks’ Posts, write “5” below the diagonal line 
in the next five squares. Then as you deliver each copy 
you will write “ 1 ” above the diagonal line in the square for 
that issue. Thus you will know at a glance whether your 
customer owes you money or you owe him copies—or you 
are even up. 

Take an example: You secure a customer’s signature 
in the space provided for it. On Thursday, June 6, you show 
this card to his office boy or janitor and gain admission. 
He takes a copy of The Post dated June 15, and gives you 
a nickel. Your entry will be as follows: 








To Mr.- 

Agent for The Curtis Publishing Company. 

Until further notice deliver personally to me a copy 
of each issue of The Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies’ 
Home Journal and The Country Gentleman. 


Signed 


Issue 

% 













Post 

X 












7 

Journal 



/I 











Gentleman 















Next week he takes a copy of the issue of June 15, 
but hasn’t the nickel with him. You have to trust him. 
The next square is then filled in as follows: 


Issue 

% 

6 / 5 












Fbst 

X 

V 












Journal 

X, 













Gentleman 

X 














This shows he owes you a nickel on The Post of 
June 15. 

Next week he pays you that nickel, and, to save trouble, 
gives you a quarter for The Post of June 22, and for the 
next four issues. He also gives you fifteen cents for a copy 
of the July Journal and five cents for a current issue of 
The Gentleman. 


104 











































Issue 

% 

% 

July 

e /l2 

%9 

% 

V\2 

b\ 





Post 

X 

y 



yo 





y 



Journal 



y^ 

y 


y 






y 

Gentleman 




K 






y 

y 



This page tells you that Mr. Jones is a steady Post 
customer, that he has paid up for four weeks in advance, 
that he buys The Journal and that he is a lively prospect 
for The Gentleman. 

Now, you have learned that Mr. Jones has a small truck 
patch and grows tomatoes. You have learned that he is 
a Republican and that his hobby aside from his truck 
patch is architecture. This information you will write on 
the reverse of his card, as follows: 


Political Party_ 

Business_ 

College man_ 


Republican 


Banker 


Harvard 


What is he interested in? 
Additional memoranda 


A thirties, Business A rti cles, Stories 


Suburbanite 


Grows Tomatoes 


Interested in Buildings and Architecture 


With this before you, and when you have gained a 
thorough knowledge of the current issue, you will know 
how to approach him, what articles to talk up and what 


































This is 
Mercui 


the go 
Comme 


and 

Busine 



Bear them both in 
mind, boy! 


The wings mean speed 
and the serpents 
mean shrewdness. 


This is his sceptre. 


articles to ignore. When an article on truck patches in 
general, and tomato truck patches in particular, is due to 
appear in The Gentleman you will know how to play up 
that issue. When The Journal has an unusually good 
article on bungalows you will use it as an argument for 
becoming a steady buyer of The Journal. When The 
Post contains a short article on the Republican situation 
you will talk that article when you come to deliver his 
copy. 

In short, you’ve got to do what all business men do: 
Account for the stock (the magazines) you buy, account for 
the stock you sell, and sell as much as you can by offering 
to each customer exactly what he wants . 


Kill the Waste 


Three things go to make up a Curtis boy’s success— 
Time, Talents and Energy. They ought to be handled 
properly. From them he gets his profits and his prizes. 
He profits by them just as the merchant does; only, mind 
you, his earnings, provided he doesn’t waste them, are 
greater—far greater in proportion than the profits of the 
average merchant. 

Now, what does the merchant do? Does he merely try 
to increase business? No, sir! He also tries to keep down 
the waste. That’s one of the very first principles of busi¬ 
ness. The successful merchant’s profits don’t come 
altogether from the great amount of business he does—it 
depends a whole lot on how little loss, how little waste, his 
business has to stand. 

It is the same way with the Curtis boy. How much you 
or any other agent makes, how great your profits will be, 
what prizes you will win, depend on scaling down to the 



106 









lowest possible limit your wasted time and effort—a waste 
that shows up with horrible clearness every time you have 
to pay postage or expressage on returns of unsold copies. 
This loss can be cut out, this waste can be saved, ninety- 
nine times out of one hundred, by hustling with your 
“ left-overs ” on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after 
the date of issue. 

Put this down on your calendar, or paste it in your 
hat—anything to remember—that every cover you return 
for credit represents dead loss, wasted time and wasted 
energy. Splendid chances to make money can be saved if 
only your spare time on Monday, Tuesday and Wednes¬ 
day is devoted to selling copies which are left over. 

Why hoe only half the row? 



107 











CHAPTER X 

The Prize Awards 

W E ARE always pushing for more business. The 
larger our circulation grows the more copies our 
boys sell—and the more money they make. So 
to keep the circulation our boys have already secured for 
us, and to get MORE, we are offering hundreds of splendid 
Prizes. These are given absolutely free and are in addition 
to your cash profits. They are given for selling a certain 
total number of copies (a definite number for each Prize), 
and when you have sold that number of copies, whether it 
takes you one week or six months, you get your Prize. 

And this is bound to be a great help to you. Why? 
Stop a moment and think: 

It offers an incentive for action. It gives you mighty 
good reason to work hard. When you see a Prize you want 
it is foolish to wait six months to get it when by working 
a little harder you can get it in three months. Like the 
man in the song, you want what you want when you want it. 

It gives you a selling-argument. When by talking the 
merits of your magazine you have a customer almost at the 
point of signing as a “steady,’’ you can probably land him 
by saying: “You have about decided to sign this order. 
The time you begin makes a big difference to me. I am 
after a tool chest [or whatever you are after] and I want 
you to help me out by buying from me until I get it.” 


108 





It steadies a boy by causing him to do his level best 
all the time—not skyrocketing this month and taking it 
easy the next. “Steady and stick will do the trick”— 
that’s your motto. 

It stimulates pride. Through this plan you come into 
possession of prizes which are worth more to you than their 
value in dollars and cents. It stands for something you 
have accomplished . It says to every one that you were not 
afraid to “start something,” and that “you didn’t start 
anything you couldn’t finish.” It represents service —the 
greatest thing in the world. 

How the Prizes Are Awarded 

By the Voucher plan you can secure nearly anything 
you want. This is illustrated in our Rebate Book—and in 
the additional pages which are published from time to time 
in Our Boys. If you want a jack-knife or a good watch or 
a tool chest or a bicycle—or any of the other five hundred 
articles offered—you can get it. Listen: 

For every five copies of The Post or of The Gentle¬ 
man you sell, or for every two copies of The Journal, you 
will receive a Green Voucher. 

This is the lowest-valued Voucher. Five Green Vouchers 
make a Brown Voucher. 

To get a certain Prize you have to accumulate so many 
Brown Vouchers. The number of Brown Vouchers neces¬ 
sary for each Prize is stated in the Rebate Book. If you 
have not received a copy of the Rebate Book write us at 
once; we will send it to you by return mail. 

Now, to make it easy to give our boys the exact number 
of Vouchers to correspond with the copies they take, we 
sometimes use blue and orange Vouchers, too. The following 
table shows you just what each colored Voucher is worth: 


109 









P. or G. Copies 

J. Copies 

Green V. 

Blue V. 

Orange V. 

Brown V. 

5 

2 

1 

- 

- 

- 

10 

4 

2 

1 

- 

- 

20 

8 

4 

2 

1 

- 

25 

10 

5 

2 + 

1 + 

1 


Let us take an example: You want a pair of roller 
skates. No. 421. These are valued at forty-five brown 
Vouchers. For several weeks you have been selling the 
three magazines. You have slowly accumulated your 
Vouchers. You have forty brown Vouchers, one orange 
Voucher, eight blue Vouchers and five green Vouchers. 
According to the above table these are equivalent to 
forty-five brown Vouchers. 

You wrap them up securely and mail them to us. At 
the same time you fill out a Prize order-blank or write 
us a letter telling us that the Vouchers have been sent by 
mail or by express, as the case may be, naming the skates 
and giving the number, 421, and indicating the size—and 
you sign your full name and address. 

The skates will be forwarded to you immediately. 

Remember that whatever Prize you order you must 
give us all the description necessary—if a sweater, the size 
and color; if a fountain pen, whether fine or stub; if a 
revolver, what caliber—if the caliber is optional. 

Make Every Copy Count 

Vouchers are given you for those Post and Gentleman 
copies you order in multiples of five (five, ten, fifteen. 


10 













twenty, twenty-five, etc.), and those Journal copies you 
order in multiples of two (two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, 
etc.) Any additional copies not enough to make another 
five or another two will not net you any more Vouchers. 

If you sell thirty Post and ten Gentleman copies 
each week you will get eight green Vouchers. If you sell 
thirty-three Post and fourteen Gentleman copies you 
will still get eight green Vouchers. Your increase of three 
copies of The Post and one copy of The Gentleman has 
not increased your Vouchers. But if you sell thirty-five 
Post and fifteen Gentleman copies you will get ten green 
Vouchers. 

See the point? If you get three more Post customers 
order five copies and take a chance with the other two. 
Probably you will be able to sell them. You can use them 
for samples, anyway, and you’ll get an extra Voucher. 

The same with The Journal. If you get a new cus¬ 
tomer order two more copies. You may sell the extra 
copy. You may use it as a sample. But you will get 
another Voucher. 

And every Voucher counts! 

Fair Play 

What we want, what we want you to have, what we 
want everybody to have, is fair play—a square deal for all. 
We want you to get your Vouchers. No other agent is to 
get Prizes for work you do—unless with your full consent. 
No underhanded boy may get them by fraud or theft—and 
we will see that he does not. But if you wish you may 
trade your Vouchers to a friend or sell them. You can club 
together with a chum, or with several other fellows, and 


in 






secure a camping outfit or a cement-block outfit or a tool 
kit or any other Prize that you and your pals want. 

We want you to get what you want, when you want it 
and by what method you want it—as long as it’s a square 
deal for all. 



End of tfe DooE ^ ^ 


c ~Mafe it ihe Bes(i nnin^ 
ofySur Success , 








112 



















MOV 8 


LlbKHKY 





























































